‘You’ll do the right thing again, if you please, by telling me what happened before you called him.’

She darted a glance at the small motionless figure in shadow at the end of the room and wetted her lips.

‘Come on, now,’ Fox said. ‘Speak up.’

Standing where she was, a serio-comic figure under her panoply of tin hair curlers, she did tell her story.

After Dr Harkness had given his orders, she and – again that sidelong glance – she and Mrs Plumtree had made up the bed in the study. Dr Harkness had helped Mr Templeton undress and had seen him into bed and they had all waited until he was settled down, comfortably. Dr Harkness had left after giving orders that he was to be called if wanted. Florence had then gone to the pantry to fill a second hot-water bottle. This had taken some time as she had been obliged to boil a kettle. When she returned to the hall she had heard voices raised in the study. It seemed that she had paused outside the door. Alleyn had a picture of her, a hot-water bottle under her arm, listening avidly. She had heard Mrs Plumtree’s voice, but had been unable to distinguish any words. Then, she said, she had heard Mr Templeton ejaculate: ‘No!’ three times, just as he did before he died, only much louder; as if, Florence said, he was frightened. After that there had been a clatter and Mrs Plumtree had suddenly become audible. She had shouted, Florence reported, at the top of her voice: ‘I’ll put a stop to it,’ Mr Templeton had given a loud cry and Florence had burst into the room.

‘All right,’ Alleyn said. ‘And what did you find?’

A scene, it appeared, of melodrama. Mrs Plumtree with the poker grasped and upraised, Mr Templeton sprawled along the bed, facing her.

‘And when they seen me,’ Florence said, ‘she dropped the poker in the hearth and he gasped, “Florrie, don’t let ’er” and then he took a turn for the worse and I see he was very bad. So I said, “Don’t you touch ’im. Don’t you dare,” and I fetched the doctor like you saw. And God’s my witness,’ Florence concluded, ‘if she isn’t the cause of his death! As good as if she’d struck him down, ill and all as he was, and which she’d of done if I hadn’t come in when I did and which she’d do to me now if it wasn’t for you gentlemen.’

She stopped breathless. There was a considerable pause. ‘Well!’ she demanded. ‘Don’t you believe it? All right, then. Ask her. Go on. Ask her!’

‘Everything in its turn,’ Alleyn said. ‘That will do from you for the moment. Stay where you are.’ He turned to the short motionless figure in the shadows. ‘Come along,’ he said. ‘You can’t avoid it, you know. Come along.’