Into the dead silence that followed this announcement, there intruded a distant but reminiscent commotion. A door slammed and somebody came running up the hall.

‘My God, what now!’ Bertie Saracen cried out. With the exception of Marchant and Dr Harkness they were all on their feet when Florence, grotesque in tin curling pins, burst into the room.

In an appalling parody of her fatal entrance she stood there, mouthing at them.

Alleyn strode over to her and took her by the wrist. ‘What is it?’ he said. ‘Speak up.’

And Florence, as if in moments of catastrophe she was in command of only one phrase, gabbled: ‘The doctor! Quick! For Christ’s sake! Is the doctor in the house!’

CHAPTER 8

Pattern Completed

Charles Templeton lay face down, as if he had fallen forward with his head towards the foot of the bed that had been made up for him in the study. One arm hung to the floor, the other was outstretched beyond the end of the bed. The back of his neck was empurpled under its margin of thin white hair. His pyjama jacket was dragged up, revealing an expanse of torso; old, white and flaccid. When Alleyn raised him and held him in a sitting position, his head lolled sideways, his mouth and eyes opened and a flutter of sound wavered in his throat. Dr Harkness leant over him, pinching up the skin of his forearm to admit the needle. Fox hovered nearby. Florence, her knuckles clenched between her teeth, stood just inside the door. Charles seemed to be unaware of these four onlookers; his gaze wandered past them, fixed itself in terror on the fifth; the short person who stood, pressed back against the wall in shadow at the end of the room.

The sound in his throat was shaped with great difficulty into one word. ‘No!’ it whispered. ‘No! No!’

Dr Harkness withdrew the needle.

‘What is it?’ Alleyn said. ‘What do you want to tell us?’

The eyes did not blink or change their direction, but after a second or two they lost focus, glazed, and remained fixed. The jaw dropped, the body quivered and sank.

Dr Harkness leant over it for some time and then drew back.

‘Gone,’ he said

Alleyn laid his burden down and covered it.

In a voice that they had not heard from him before, Dr Harkness said: ‘He was all right ten minutes ago. Settled. Quiet. Something’s gone wrong here and I’ve got to hear what it was.’ He turned on Florence. ‘Well?’

Florence, with an air that was half-combative, half-frightened, moved forward, keeping her eyes on Alleyn.

‘Yes,’ Alleyn said, answering her look, ‘we must hear from you. You raised the alarm. What happened?’

‘That’s what I’d like to know!’ she said at once. ‘I did the right thing, didn’t I? I called the doctor. Now!’