She moved out into the light. Her small nose and the areas over her cheekbones were still patched with red, but otherwise her face was a dreadful colour. She said, automatically, it seemed: ‘You’re a wicked girl, Floy.’

‘Never mind about that,’ Alleyn said. ‘Are you going to tell me what happened?’

She looked steadily up into his face. Her mouth was shut like a trap, but her eyes were terrified.

‘Look here, Ninn,’ Dr Harkness began very loudly. Alleyn raised a finger and he stopped short.

‘Has Florence,’ Alleyn asked, ‘spoken the truth? I mean as to facts. As to what she saw and heard when she came back to this room?’

She nodded, very slighdy.

‘You had the poker in your hand. You dropped it when she came in. Mr Templeton said, “Florrie, don’t let her.” That’s true, isn’t it?’

‘Yes.’

‘And before she came in you had said, very loudly, to Mr Templeton, “I’ll put a stop to it?” Did you say this?’

‘Yes.’

‘What were you going to put a stop to?’

Silence.

‘Was it something Mr Templeton had said he would do?’

She shook her head.

For a lunatic second or two Alleyn was reminded of a panel game on television. He saw the Plumtree face in close-up; tight-lipped, inimical, giving nothing away, winning the round.

He looked at Fox. ‘Would you take Florence into the hall? You too, Dr Harkness, if you will?’

‘I’m not going,’ Florence said. ‘You can’t make me.’

‘Oh, yes, I can,’ Alleyn rejoined tranquilly, ‘but you’d be very foolish to put it to the test. Out you go, my girl.’

Fox approached her. ‘You keep your hands off me!’ she said.

‘Now, now!’ Fox rumbled cosily. He opened the door. For a moment she looked as if she would show fight and then, with a lift of her chin, she went out. Fox followed her.

Dr Harkness said: ‘There are things to be done. I mean …’ He gestured at the covered form on the bed.

‘I know. I don’t expect to be long. Wait for me in the hall, will you, Harkness?’

The door shut behind them.

For perhaps ten seconds Alleyn and that small, determined and miserable little woman looked at each other.

Then he said: ‘It’s got to come out, you know. You’ve been trying to save him, haven’t you?’

Her hands moved convulsively, and she looked in terror at the bed.

‘No, no,’ Alleyn said. ‘Not there. I’m not talking about him. You didn’t care about him. You were trying to shield the boy, weren’t you? You did what you did for Richard Dakers.’

She broke into a passion of weeping and from then until the end of the case he had no more trouble with Ninn.

II

When it was over he sent her up to her room.