‘Vaguely. He’s something pretty grand in the City.’ Alleyn lit his mother’s cigarette and his own. He walked over to the french window and looked across the lawn.

‘Your garden is getting ready to come out, too,’ he said. ‘I wish I hadn’t to go back to the Yard.’

‘Now, darling? This minute?’

‘Afraid so. It’s this case.’ He waved some papers in his hand. ‘Fox rang up late last night. Something’s cropped up.’

‘What sort of case is it?’

‘Blackmail, but you’re not allowed to ask questions.’

‘Rory, how exciting. Who’s being blackmailed? Somebody frightfully important, I hope?’

‘Do you remember Lord Robert Gospell?’

‘Bunchy Gospell, do you mean? Surely he’s not being blackmailed. A more innocent creature—’

‘No, mama, he isn’t. Nor is he a blackmailer.’

‘He’s a dear little man,’ said Lady Alleyn emphatically. ‘The nicest possible little man.’

‘Not so little nowadays. He’s very plump and wears a cloak and a sombrero like G.K.C.’

‘Really?’

‘You must have seen photographs of him in your horrible illustrated papers. They catch him when they can. “Lord Robert (‘Bunchy’) Gospell tells one of his famous stories.” That sort of thing.’

‘Yes, but what’s he got to do with blackmail?’

‘Nothing. He is, as you say, an extremely nice little man.’

‘Roderick, don’t be infuriating. Has Bunchy Gospell got anything to do with Scotland Yard?’

Alleyn was staring out into the garden.

‘You might say,’ he said at last, ‘that we have a very great respect for him at the Yard. Not only is he charming—he is also, in his own way, a rather remarkable personage.’

Lady Alleyn looked at her son meditatively for some seconds.

‘Are you meeting him today?’ she asked.

‘I think so.’

‘Why?’

‘Why, darling, to listen to one of his famous stories, I suppose.’