‘Do you mean that they seemed to avoid him?’

‘I received the impression, sir, that these gentlemen wished to be alone. That is why I remember them.’

‘Their names?’

‘I do not know their names.’

‘Can you describe them?’

‘One, sir, was a man perhaps forty-five or fifty years of age. He was a big man with a red face and thick neck. His voice was an unsympathetic voice. The other was a young gentleman, dark, rather nervous. I observed that he danced repeatedly with Miss Bridget O’Brien.’

‘Thank you,’ said Alleyn. ‘That is excellent. Any others?’

‘I cannot recall any others, sir. Wait! There was someone who was there for some time.’

François put his first finger to his chin like a sort of male dairymaid and cast his eyes to the ceiling.

‘Tiens!’ he exclaimed, ‘who could it have been? Alors, I have it. It is of no importance at all, sir. It was the little mademoiselle, the secretary, who was known to few and therefore retired often to the gallery. I have remembered too that Sir Daniel Davidson, the physician, came upstairs. That was earlier. Before Lord Robert appeared. I think Sir Daniel looked for a partner because he went quickly in and out of both rooms and looked about the landing. I have remembered now that it was for Lady Carrados he enquired but she had gone downstairs a few minutes earlier. I told Sir Daniel this and he returned downstairs.’

Alleyn looked over his notes.

‘See now,’ he said. ‘I am right in saying this? The persons who, as far as you know, could have gone into the telephone-room while Lord Robert was using the telephone were Sir Herbert Carrados and the two gentlemen who sent you for whisky.’

‘Yes, sir. And the mademoiselle. Miss Harris is her name. I believe she entered the ladies’ toilet just as Lord Robert went into the telephone-room. I have remarked that when ladies are much disengaged at balls they frequently enter the dressing-room. It is,’ added François with an unexpected flash of humanity, ‘a circumstance that I find rather pathetic.’

‘Yes,’ said Alleyn. ‘Very pathetic. I am right, then, in saying that before Lord Robert went to telephone, you fetched drinks for these two men and immediately after that he began to telephone. You were sent away by Sir Herbert Carrados, leaving him, Miss Harris and possibly others, whom you have forgotten, on the landing, and the two gentlemen in the other sitting-out room. Sir Daniel Davidson had gone downstairs some minutes previously. Lady Carrados before Sir Daniel, who was looking for her. You’re sure of that?’

‘Yes, sir. It is in my memory because after her ladyship had gone I entered the telephone-room and saw she had left her bag there. Monsieur—Mr Dimitri—came up at that time, saw it, and said he would return it to her ladyship. I told him she had gone downstairs and he returned, I think, by the back stairs.’