The gallery was typical of most large, old-fashioned London houses. The room with the telephone was at the far end, next to it was a lavatory. This turned out to be a Victorian affair with a small ante-room and a general air of varnish and gloom. The inner door was half-panelled with thick clouded glass which let through a little murky daylight. Beyond it was a bedroom that had been used as a ladies’ cloakroom and last, at the top of the stairs, the second sitting-out room. Beside the door of this room was another green baize door leading to servants’ quarters and back stairs. The other side of the gallery was open and looked over the great well of the house. Alleyn leant on the balustrade and stared down the steep perspective of twisting stairs into the hall two storeys below.

‘A good vantage spot this,’ he said. ‘We’ll go down, now.’

On the next landing was the ballroom. Nothing could have looked more desolate than the great empty floor, the chairs that wore that disconcerting air of talking to each other, the musicians’ platform, littered with cigarette butts and programmes. A fine dust lay over everything and the great room echoed to their footsteps. The walls sighed a little as though the air imprisoned behind them sought endlessly for escape. Alleyn and Fox hunted about but found nothing to help them and went down the great stairs to the hall.

‘Here he stood,’ said Alleyn, ‘at the foot of the left-hand flight of stairs. Dimitri is not far off. Sir Daniel came out of the cloakroom over there on the left. The group of noisy young people was nearer the front entrance. And through this door, next the men’s cloakroom, was the buffet. Let’s have a look at it. You’ve seen all this before, Brer Fox, but you must allow me to maunder on.’

They went into the buffet.

‘It stinks like a pot-house, doesn’t it? Look at Dimitri’s neat boxes of empty champagne bottles under the tables. Gaiety at ten pounds a dozen. This is where Donald and Bridget came from in the penultimate scene and where Dimitri and Carrados spoke together just before Lord Robert left. And for how long afterwards? Look, Fox, here’s a Sherlock Holmes touch. A cigar stump lying by a long trace of its own ash. A damn good cigar and has been carefully smoked. Here’s the gentleman’s glass beside it and here, on the floor, is the broken band. A Corona-Corona.’ Alleyn sniffed at the glass. ‘Brandy. Here’s the bottle, Courvoisier ’87. I’ll wager that wasn’t broadcast among the guests. More likely to have been kept for old Carrados. Fox, ring up Dimitri and find out if Sir Herbert drank brandy and smoked a cigar when he came in here after the party. And at the same time you might ask if we can see the Carrados family in about half an hour. Then we’ll have to go on to the Halcut-Hackett group. Their house is close by here, Halkin Street. We’ll have to come back. I want to see Carrados first. See if General and Mrs Halcut-Hackett will see us in about two hours, will you, Fox?’