‘Pinky,’ Richard said unevenly, ‘you really are no end of a darling. I’m afraid I can’t – I can’t, … I’m sorry. I’m just not reacting much to anything.’

‘Exactly,’ Marchant said. ‘How well one understands. The proper thing, of course, would be for one to leave you to yourself, which unfortunately this Yard individual at the moment won’t allow.’

‘He did send to say it wouldn’t be long now,’ Bertie pointed out nervously.

‘Do you suppose,’ Pinky asked, ‘that means he’s going to arrest somebody?’

‘Who can tell! Do you know what?’ Bertie continued very rapidly and in an unnatural voice. ‘I don’t mind betting every man Jack of us is madly wondering what all the others think about him. Or her. I know I am. I keep saying to myself, “Can any of them think I darted upstairs instead of into the loo, and did it!” I suppose it’s no use asking you all for a frank opinion, is it? It would be taking an advantage.’

‘I don’t think it of you,’ Pinky said at once. ‘I promise you, darling.’

‘Pinky! Nor I of you. Never for a moment. And I don’t believe it of Anelida or Richard. Do you?’

‘Never for a moment,’ she said firmly. ‘Absolutely not.’

‘Well,’ Bertie continued, inspired by Pinky’s confidence, ‘I should like to know if any of you does suppose it might be me.’ Nobody answered. ‘I can’t help feeling immensely gratified,’ Bertie said. ‘Thank you. Now. Shall I tell you which of you I think could – just – under frightful provocation – do something violent all of a sudden?’

‘Me, I suppose,’ Gantry said. ‘I’m a hot-tempered man.’

‘Yes, Timmy, dear, you! But only in boiling hot blood with one blind swipe, not really meaning to. And that doesn’t seem to fit the bill at all. One wants a calculating iceberg of a person for this job, doesn’t one?’

There followed a period of hideous discomfort during which nobody looked at anybody else.

‘An idle light of speculation, I’m afraid, Bertie,’ said Marchant. ‘Would you be very kind and bring me a drink?’

‘But of course,’ said Bertie, and did so.

Gantry glanced at Richard and said: ‘Obviously there’s no connection – apart from the shock of Mary’s death having precipitated it – between Charles’s tragedy – and hers.’ Nobody spoke and he added half-angrily: ‘Well, is there! Harkness – you were there.’

Dr Harkness said quickly: ‘I don’t know what’s in Alleyn’s mind.’

‘Where’s that monumental, that superb old ham, the colonel? Why’s he gone missing all of a sudden?’ Gantry demanded. ‘Sorry, Dicky, he’s a friend of yours, isn’t he?’

‘He’s … Yes,’ Richard said after a long pause. ‘He is. I think he’s with Alleyn.’

‘Not,’ Marchant coolly remarked, ‘under arrest, one trusts.’