‘Yes,’ he said when Alleyn had finished ‘Yes. It adds up, Mr Alleyn. It fits. The only catch that I can see rests in the little difficulty of our having next-to-nothing to substantiate the theory.’

Alleyn pointed a long finger at the exhibits. ‘We’ve got those,’ he said, ‘and it’ll go damn’ hard if we don’t rake up something else in the next half-hour.’

‘Motive?’

‘Motive unknown. It may declare itself. Opportunity’s our bird, Fox. Opportunity, my boy.’

‘What’s the next step?’

‘I rather fancy shock tactics. They’re all cooped up in the dining-room, aren’t they?’

‘All except Mr Templeton. He’s still in the study. When I looked in they were having supper. He’d ordered it for them. Cold partridge,’ Mr Fox said rather wistfully. ‘A bit of a waste, really, as they didn’t seem to have much appetite.’

‘We’ll see if we can stimulate it,’ Alleyn said grimly, ‘with these,’ and waved his hand at the three exhibits.

III

Pinky Cavendish pushed her plate away and addressed herself firmly to her companions.

‘I feel,’ she said, ‘completely unreal. It’s not an agreeable sensation.’ She looked round the table. ‘Is there any reason why we don’t say what’s in all our minds? Here we sit, pretending to eat: every man-jack of us pea-green with worry but cutting the whole thing dead. I can’t do with it. Not for another second. I’m a loquacious woman and I want to talk.’

‘Pinky,’ Timon Gantry said. ‘Your sense of timing! Never quite successfully co-ordinated, dear, is it?’

‘But, actually,’ Bertie Saracen plaintively objected, ‘I do so feel Pinky’s dead right. I mean we are all devastated and for my part, at least, terrified but there’s no real future, is there, in maintaining a charnel-house decorum? It can’t improve anything, or can it? And it’s so excessively wearing. Dicky, dear, you won’t misunderstand me, will you? The hearts, I promise you, are utterly in their right place which, speaking for myself, is in the boots.’

Richard, who had been talking in an undertone to Anelida, looked up. ‘Why not talk,’ he said, ‘if you can raise something that remotely resembles normal conversation.’

Warrender darted a glance at him. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Entirely agree.’ But Richard wouldn’t look at Warrender.

‘Even abnormal conversation,’ Pinky said, ‘would be preferable to strangulated silence.’

Bertie, with an air of relief, said: ‘Well, then, everybody, let’s face it. We’re not being herded together in a’ – he swallowed – ‘in a communal cell just out of constabular whimsy. Now are we?’

‘No, Bertie,’ Pinky said, ‘we are not’

‘Under hawk-like supervision,’ Bertie added, ‘if Sergeant Philpott doesn’t mind my mentioning it.’

PC Philpott, from his post at the far end of the room, said: ‘Not at all, sir,’ and surreptitiously groped for his notebook.