‘I’ve got an inkling,’ he said. ‘Within the last hour there has been an attempt at a second murder. You think, don’t you, that I’m saying to myself: “This attempt follows, in character, the attack on Mrs Rubrick. Therefore it has been made by Mrs Rubrick’s assailant”.’

Terence looked attentively at him, a wary sidelong glance. She seemed to take alarm and rose quickly, facing him. ‘What do you mean…?’

‘You think,’ said Alleyn, ‘that because Arthur Rubrick is dead, I cannot suspect him of the murder of his wife.’

CHAPTER ELEVEN

According to Arthur Rubrick

THERE WAS NOTHING further to be got from Terence Lynne. Alleyn went upstairs with her and stood in the open doorway while she fetched Arthur Rubrick’s diary from its hiding-place. She gave it to him without a word, and the last glimpse he had of her was of an inimical face, pale, framed in its loosened wings of black hair. She shut the door on him. He went downstairs and called Cliff Johns and Markins into the study. It was now ten o’clock.

Cliff was nervous, truculent, and inclined to give battle.

‘I don’t know why you want to pick on me again,’ he said. ‘I don’t know anything, I couldn’t have done anything, and I’ve had just about enough of these sessions. If this is the Scotland Yard method, I don’t wonder at what modern psychiatrists say about British justice.’

‘Don’t you talk silly,’ Markins admonished him and added hurriedly: ‘Beg pardon, sir, I’m sure.’

‘It’s absolutely medieval,’ Cliff mumbled.

‘Now, see here,’ Alleyn said. ‘I heartily agree that you and I have had more than enough of these interviews. In the course of them, you have refused to give me certain information. I have now got that information from another source. I am going to repeat it to you and ask for your confirmation or denial. You’re in a difficult position. Indeed, it is my duty to tell you that what you say will be taken down and may be used in evidence.’

Cliff wetted his lips. ‘But that’s what they say when—that means—’

‘It means that you’ll be well advised either to tell the truth or to say nothing at all.’

‘I didn’t kill her. I didn’t touch her.’

‘Let us start with this business of the whisky. Is it true that you caught Albert Black in the act of stealing it, and were yourself in the act of replacing it when Markins found you?’

Markins had moved behind Cliff to the desk. He sat at it, opened his pocket book and produced a stump of pencil from his waistcoat.

‘Anything to say about that?’ Alleyn asked Cliff. ‘True or untrue?’

‘Did he tell you?’

Alleyn raised an eyebrow. ‘I extracted it from his general manner. He admitted it. Why did you refuse to give this story to Mrs Rubrick?’