Douglas Grace at once began to protest that this was unfair, that nobody could have been fonder of his aunt than he was, that he used to pull her leg when she was alive and that she liked it. He was flustered and affronted and the others listened to him in an uncomfortable silence. ‘If we’ve got to talk about her,’ Douglas said hotly, ‘for God’s sake let’s be honest. We were all fond of her, weren’t we?’ Fabian hunched up his shoulders but said nothing. ‘We all took a pretty solid knock when she was murdered, didn’t we? We all agreed that Fabian should ask Mr Alleyn to come? All right. If we’ve got to hold a post-mortem on her character which, personally, seems to me to be a waste of time, I suppose we’re meant to say what we think.’

‘Certainly,’ said Fabian. ‘Unburden the bosom, work off the inhibitions. But it’s Ursy’s innings at the moment, isn’t it?’

‘You interrupted her, Fab.’

‘Did I? I’m sorry, Ursy,’ said Fabian gently. He slewed round—put his chin on the arm of her chair and looked up comically at her.

‘I’m ashamed of you,’ she said uncertainly.

‘Please go on. You’d got roughly to 1941 with Flossie in the full flush of her parliamentary career, you know. Here we were, Mr Alleyn. Douglas, recovered from his wound but passed unfit for further service, going the rounds of a kind of superior Shepherd’s Calendar. Terry, building up Flossie’s prestige with copious shorthand notes and cross-references. Ursula—’ He broke off for a moment. ‘Ursula provided enchantment,’ he said lightly, ‘and I, comedy. I fell off horses and collapsed at high altitudes, and fainted into sheep-dips. Perhaps these antics brought me en rapport with my unfortunate uncle who, at the same time, was fighting his own endocarditic battle. Carry on, Ursy.’

‘Carry on with what? What’s the good of my trying to give my picture of her when you all—when you all—’ Her voice wavered for a moment. ‘All right,’ she said more firmly. ‘The idea is that we each give our own account of the whole thing, isn’t it? The same account that I’ve bleated out at dictation speed to that monumental bore from the detective’s office. All right.’

‘One moment,’ said Alleyn’s voice out of the shadows. He saw the four heads turn to him in the firelight.