‘Poor Terry,’ Douglas echoed playfully, obtusely, and sat beside her again, laying his big muscular hand on her knee.

‘Where are the essays?’ Fabian asked.

‘I’ve got them.’

‘I’d like to read them, Terry. May I?’

‘No,’ she said coldly.

‘Isn’t that rather churlish?’

‘I’m sorry. He gave them to me.’

‘I always thought,’ said Douglas out of a clear sky, ‘that they were an ideal couple. Awfully fond of each other. Uncle Arthur thought she was the cat’s whiskers. Always telling people how marvellous she was.’ He slapped Terence’s knee. ‘Wasn’t he?’ he persisted.

‘Yes.’

‘Yes,’ said Ursula. ‘He was. He admired her tremendously. You can’t deny that, Fabian.’

‘I don’t deny it. It’s incredible, but true. He thought a great deal of her.’

‘For the things he hadn’t got,’ said Terence. ‘Vitality. Initiative. Drive. Popularity. Nerve.’

‘You’re prejudiced,’ Ursy said fiercely, ‘you and Fabian. It’s not fair. She was kind, kind and warm and generous. She was never petty or spiteful and how you, both of you, who owed her so much—’

‘I owed her nothing whatever,’ said Terence. ‘I did my job well. She was lucky to have me. I admit she was kind in the way that vain people are kind. She knew how kind she was. She was quite kind.’

‘And generous?’

‘Yes. Quite.’

‘And unsuspicious?’

‘Yes,’ Terence agreed after a pause. ‘I suppose so.’

‘Then I think it’s poor Florence Rubrick,’ said Ursula ‘I do indeed, Terry.’

‘I won’t take that,’ Terence said, and for the first time Alleyn heard a note of anger in her voice. ‘She was too stupid to know, to notice how fortunate she was…might have been…She didn’t even look after her proprietary rights. She was like an absentee landlord.’

‘But she didn’t ask you to poach on the estates.’

‘What are you two arguing about?’ demanded the punctual Douglas. ‘What’s it all in aid of?’

‘Nothing,’ said Fabian. ‘There’s no argument. Let it go.’

‘But it was you who organized this striptease act, Fabian,’ Ursula pointed out. ‘The rest of us have had to do our stuff. Why should Terry get off?’