‘What the devil happened between him and Mary Bellamy when he came back? He won’t tell his girl. He merely says the interview ended in Miss Bellamy laughing. We’ve got the reports from those two intensely prejudiced women who both agree he looked ghastly. All right. He goes out. There’s this crash Florence talked about. Florence goes down to the half-landing and Ninn hears a spray being used. Templeton comes out from the drawing-room to the foot of the stairs. He calls up to Florence to tell her mistress they’re waiting for her. Florence goes up to the room and finds her mistress in her death throes. Dakers returns two hours after the death, comes up to this room, writes a letter and tries to go away. End of information. Next step: confront him with the letter?’

‘Your reconstruction of it?’

‘Oh,’ Alleyn said. ‘I fancy I can lay my hands on the original.’

Fox looked at him with placid approval and said nothing.

‘What did you get from your Press photographer? And which photographer?’ Alleyn asked.

‘He was hanging about in the street and said he’d something to tell me. Put-up job to get inside, of course, but I thought I’d see what it was. He took a picture of deceased with Mr Dakers in the background at twenty to eight by the hall clock. He saw them go upstairs together. Gives us an approximate time for the demise for what it’s worth.’

‘About ten minutes later. What did you extract from the servants?’

‘Not a great deal. It seems the deceased wasn’t all that popular with the staff except Florence, who was hers, as the cook put it, body and soul. Gracefield held out on me for a bit, but he’s taken quite a liking to you, sir, and I built on that with good results.’

‘What the hell have you been saying?’

‘Well, Mr Alleyn, you know as well as I do what snobs these high-class servants are.’

Alleyn didn’t pursue the subject.

‘There was a dust-up,’ Fox continued, ‘this morning with Miss Cavendish and Mr Saracen. Gracefield happened to overhear it.’ He repeated Gracefield’s account, which had been detailed and accurate.

‘According to Anelida Lee this row was revived in the conservatory,’ Alleyn muttered. ‘What were they doing here this morning?’

‘Mr Saracen had come to do the flowers, about which Gracefield spoke very sarcastically, and Miss Cavendish had brought the deceased that bottle of scent.’

‘What! ‘Alleyn ejaculated. ‘Not the muck on her dressing-table? Not “Unguarded”? This morning?’

‘That’s right.’

Alleyn slapped his hand down on Richard’s desk and got up. ‘My God, what an ass I’ve been!’ he said and then, sharply: ‘Who opened it?’

‘She did. In the dining-room.’

‘And used it? Then?’

‘Had a bit of a dab, Gracefield said. He happened to be glancing through the serving-hatch at the time.’

‘What became of it after that?’