And as they crept along, flashing their torches, he thought, ‘If only I could have been sure he’d be all right for a bit in the wool-shed. A nice set of prints there’ll be with this frost and here we go, all over Tom Tiddler’s ground tramping out gold and silver.’

It was less slippery on the verge than it had been on the steep hillside, and when they reached the main track the going was still easier. The french windows into the drawing-room were unlocked and they took Fabian in that way, letting the stretcher down on the floor while Markins lit the lamps. Fabian was so quiet that Alleyn waited anxiously to see him, wondering if he had fainted. But when the lamplight shone on his face his eyes were open and he was frowning.

‘All right?’ Alleyn asked gently. Fabian turned his head aside and muttered, ‘Oh, yes. Yes.’

‘I’ll go upstairs and tell Grace what you’ve been up to. Markins, you might get a kettle to boil. You others wait, will you?’

He ran upstairs to be confronted on the landing by Ursula in her dressing-gown, holding a candle above her head and peering into the well.

‘What’s happened?’ she said.

‘A bit of an accident. Your young man’s given himself a crack on the head, but he’s doing nicely.’

‘Fabian?’ Her eyes widened. ‘Where is he?’

‘Now, don’t go haring off, there’s a good child. He’s in the drawing-room and we’re putting him to bed. Before you go down to him, put a couple of hot-water bottles in his bed and repeat to yourself some appropriate tune from your first-aid manual. He’ll do, I fancy.’

They were standing outside Terence Lynne’s door and now it opened. She too came out with a candle. She looked very sleek and pale in her ruby silk dressing-gown.

‘Fabian’s hurt,’ said Ursula, and darted back into her own room.

Miss Lynne had left her door open. Alleyn could see where a second candle burnt on her bedside-table above an open book, a fat notebook it seemed to be, its pages covered in a fine script. She followed the direction of his gaze, and with a swift movement shut her door. Ursula returned with a hot-water bag and hurried down the passage to Fabian’s room.

Miss Lynne examined Alleyn by the light of her own candle. ‘You’ve been fighting,’ she said.

He touched his jaw. ‘I ran into something in the shed.’

‘It’s bleeding.’

‘So it is. Can you give me a bit of cotton-wool or something?’ She hesitated. ‘Wait here a moment,’ she said and slipped through the door, shutting it behind her.

Alleyn tapped and entered. She was beside her dressing-table, but in a flash had moved to the bed and shut the book. ‘I asked you to wait,’ she said.