‘Now then, Ursy,’ Fabian protested. He knelt up and put his hands over hers. ‘Behave!’ he said. ‘Be your age, woman. You astonish me.’

‘She was a darling, and I loved her. If it hadn’t been for her—’

‘All right, all right.’

‘You would never even have seen me if it hadn’t been for her.’

‘Who was it,’ Fabian murmured, ‘who held the grapes above Tantalus’s lips? Could it have been Aunt Florence?’

‘All the same,’ said Ursula with that curious air, half-rueful, half-obstinate, that seemed to characterize her relationship with Fabian, ‘you’re beastly to me. I’m sorry, Terry.’

‘May we go on?’ asked Douglas.

Alleyn, in his chair beyond the firelight, stirred slightly and at once they were attentive and still.

‘Captain Grace,’ Alleyn said, ‘during the hunt for the diamond brooch, you went up to the house for a torch, didn’t you?’

‘For two torches, sir. I gave one to Uncle Arthur.’

‘Did you see any one in the house?’

‘No. There was only Markins. Markins says he was in his room. There’s no proof of that. The torches are kept on the hall table. The telephone rang while I was there and I answered it. But that only took a few seconds. Somebody wanting to know if Aunt Florence was going north in the morning.’

‘From the terrace in front of the house you look down on the fenced paths, don’t you? Could you see the other searchers from there?’

‘Not Uncle Arthur or Fabian, but I could just see the two girls. It was almost dark. I went straight to my uncle with the torch, he was there all right.’

‘Were you with him when he found the brooch?’

‘No. I simply gave him the torch and returned to my own beat with mine. I heard him call out a few moments later. He left the brooch where it was for me to see. It looked like a cluster of blue and red sparks in the torchlight. It was half-hidden by zinnia leaves. He said he’d looked there before. It wasn’t too good for him to stoop much and his sight wasn’t so marvellous. I supposed he’d just missed it.’

‘Did you go into the end path, the one that runs parallel with the others and links them?’

‘No. He did.’

‘Mr Rubrick?’

‘Yes. Earlier. Just as I was going to the house and before you went down there, Ursy, and talked to Terry.’

‘Then you and Mr Rubrick must have been there together, Miss Lynne,’ said Alleyn.

‘No,’ said Terence Lynne quickly.

‘I understood Miss Harme to say that when she met you in the bottom path you told her you had been searching there.’

‘I looked about there for a moment. I don’t remember seeing Mr Rubrick. I wasn’t with him.’