Alleyn put his head in his hands. ‘Oh, Lord!’ he said.

‘You meet that kind of thing,’ Mr Fox observed, ‘in middle-aged ladies. Florence says that when Miss Bellamy or Mrs Templeton was out of humour, she would make out she was going to sack Florence, but there was nothing in it. She says she only told Mrs Plumtree as a joke. I kind of nudged in a remark about Mr Dakers’s parentage, but she wasn’t having any of that. She turned around and accused me of having a dirty mind and in the next breath had another go at Mrs Plumtree. All the same,’ Mr Fox added primly, ‘I reckon there’s something in it. I reckon so from her manner. She appears to be very jealous of anybody who was near the deceased and that takes in Mr Templeton, Mr Dakers, Mrs Plumtree and the colonel.’

‘Good old Florrie,’ Alleyn said absentmindedly.

‘You know, sir,’ Fox continued heavily. ‘I’ve been thinking about the order of events. Take the latter part of the afternoon. Say, from when the colonel used the scent spray on deceased. What happened after that, now?’

‘According to himself he went downstairs and had a quick one with Mrs Templeton in the presence of the servants while Templeton and Dakers were closeted in the study. All this up to the time when the first guests began to come in. It looks good enough, but it’s not cast iron.’

‘Whereas,’ Fox continued, ‘Florence and Mrs Plumtree were upstairs. Either of them could have gone into Mrs Templeton’s room, and got up to the odd bit of hanky-panky, couldn’t they, now?’

‘The story is that they were together in their parlour until they went downstairs to the party. They’re at daggers-drawn. Do you think that if one of them had popped out of the parlour, the other would feel disposed to keep mum about it?’

‘Ah. There is that, of course. But it might have been forgotten.’

‘Come off it, Foxkin.’

‘The same goes for Mr Templeton and Mr Dakers. They’ve said, independently of each other, that they were together in the study. I don’t know how you feel about that one, Mr Alleyn, but I’m inclined to accept it.’

‘So am I. Entirely.’

‘If we do accept all this, we’ve got to take it that the job was fixed after the guests began to arrive. Now, up to the row in the conservatory the three gentlemen were all in the reception rooms. The colonel was in attendance on the deceased. Mr Templeton was also with her receiving the guests and Mr Dakers was on the look out for his young lady.’