‘I know,’ said Bridget. ‘If Donna or Bart ever finds out I’ve been here there’ll be a row of absolutely horrific proportions. The Matador! Unchaperoned! With Donald! But we were desperate—we had to see each other. Bart has driven me stark ravers, he’s been so awful. I managed to ring Donald up from an outside telephone and we arranged to meet here. Donald’s a member. We’ve talked it all over and we were coming to see you.’

‘Suppose you do so now. The manager here knows I’m a policeman so we’d better not leave together. Here’s my address. Come along in about fifteen minutes. That do?’

‘Yes, thank you,’ said Bridget, ‘won’t it, Donald?’

‘All right, all right,’ said Donald. ‘It’s your idea, darling. If it lands me in—’

‘It won’t land you anywhere but in my flat,’ said Alleyn. ‘You’ve both come to a very sensible decision.’

He rose and looked down at them. ‘Good Lord,’ he thought, ‘they are young.’ He said: ‘Don’t weaken. Au revoir,’ and walked out of the Matador.

On the way to his flat he wondered if the loss of the best part of another night’s sleep was going to get him any nearer a solution.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Donald on Wits

ALLEYN WALKED restlessly about his sitting-room. He had sent Vassily, his old servant, off to bed. The flat, at the end of a cul-de-sac behind Coventry Street, was very silent. He was fond of this room. It had a contradictory air of monastic comfort that was, if he had realized it, a direct expression of himself. Dürer’s praying hands were raised above his mantel-piece. At the other end of the room Troy’s painting of the wharf at Suva uttered, in sharp cool colours, a simple phrase of beauty. He had bought this picture secretly from one of her exhibitions and Troy did not know that it hung there in his room. Three comfortable elderly chairs from his mother’s house at Bossicote, his father’s desk and, waist-high all round the walls, a company of friendly books. But this June night his room seemed chilly. He put a match to the wood fire and drew three armchairs into the circle of its radiance. Time those two arrived. A taxi came up the cul-de-sac and stopped. The door banged. He heard Bridget’s voice and went to let them in.

He was reminded vividly of two small children entering a dentist’s waiting-room. Donald was the victim, Bridget the not very confident escort. Alleyn tried to dispel this atmosphere, settled them in front of the fire, produced ciagrettes, and remembering they were grown-up offered them drinks. Bridget refused. Donald with an air of grandeur accepted a whisky and soda.

‘Now then,’ said Alleyn, ‘What’s it all about?’ He felt he ought to add: ‘Open wide!’ and as he handed Donald his drink: ‘Rinse, please.’