‘I wonder,’ murmured Troy.

‘And so, you may depend upon it, do I. There’s one other point which has been kindly elucidated by the gibbering Dimitri. This morning he sent his servant out for a Times. When we heard of this we had a look at The Times, too. We found the agony-column notice that I talked about when poor Mildred was trying not to go to sleep, and before I could tell you how much I approve of the solemn way you knit your brows when you listen to me. Now, this notice read like this: “Childie Darling. Living in exile. Longing. Only want Daughter. Daddy.” A rum affair, we thought, and we noticed in our brilliant way that the initial letters read “C.D. Lie low. D.D.” which might not be too fancifully elaborated into “Colombo Dimitri, lie low, Daniel Davidson.” And, in fact, Mr Dimitri confessed to this artless device. It was arranged, he says, that if anything unprecedented, untoward, unanticipated, ever occurred, Davidson would communicate with Dimitri in precisely this manner. It was a poor effort, but Sir Daniel hadn’t much time. He must have composed it as soon as he got home after his night’s work. Anything more?’

‘What about Dimitri and Withers?’

‘They were taken to the charge-room, and duly charged. The one with blackmail, the other with running a gaming-house. I’ll explain the gaming-house some other time. They are extremely nasty fellows, but if Dimitri hadn’t been quite such a nasty fellow, we wouldn’t have stood as good a chance of scaring him into fits and getting the whole story about Davidson. I gambled on that, and by jingo, Troy, it was a gamble.’

‘What would have happened if Dimitri had kept quiet even though he did think you were going to arrest him for murder?’

‘We would still have arrested him for blackmail, and would have had to plug away at Davidson on what we’d got. But Dimitri saw we had a clear case on the blackmail charge. He’d nothing to gain in protecting Davidson.’

‘Do you think he really knows Davidson did the murder?’

‘I think we shall find that Davidson tried to warn him against collecting Evelyn Carrados’s bag at the ball. Davidson saw Bunchy was with Evelyn, when Bridget returned her bag the first time.’

‘You didn’t tell me about that.’

Alleyn told her about it.

‘And isn’t that really all?’ he asked.

‘Yes. That’s all.’

‘Troy, I love you more than anything in life. I’ve tried humility; God knows, I am humble. And I’ve tried effrontery. If you can’t love me, tell me so, and please let us not meet again because I can’t manage meeting you unless it is to love you.’

Troy raised a white face and looked solemnly at him.

‘I know my mind at last,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t be parked.’

‘Darling, darling Troy.’

‘I do love you. Very much indeed.’

‘Wonder of the world!’ cried Alleyn, and took her in his arms.