‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘to have kept you hanging about. It was unavoidable and it won’t be for much longer. Until a short time ago you were still, all of you, persons of importance. From the police point of view, I mean, of course. It was through you that we hoped to assemble the fragments and fit them into their pattern. The pattern is now complete and our uncomfortable association draws to its end. Tomorrow there will be an inquest and you will be required, most of you, to appear at it. The coroner’s jury will hear your evidence and mine and one can only guess at what they will make of it. But you have all become too far involved for me to use any sort of evasion. Already some of you are suspecting others who are innocent. In my opinion this is one of those cases where the truth, at any cost, is less damaging in the long run, to vague, festering conjecture. For you all must know,’ Alleyn went on, ‘you must know even if you won’t acknowledge it …’ his glance rested fleetingly on Richard –’that this has been a case of homicide.’

He waited. Gantry said: ‘I don’t accept that,’ but without much conviction.

‘You will, I think, when I tell you that the Home Office analyst has found a trace of Slaypest in the bulb of the scent spray.’

‘Oh,’ Gantry said faintly, as if Alleyn had made some quite unimportant remark. ‘I see. That’s different.’

‘It’s conclusive. It clears up all the extraneous matter. The professional rows, the threats that you were all so reluctant to admit, the evasions and half-lies. The personal bickerings and antagonisms. They are all tidied away by this single fact.’

Marchant, whose hands were joined in front of his face, lifted his gaze for a moment to Alleyn. ‘You are not making yourself particularly clear,’ he said.

‘I hope to do so. This one piece of evidence explains a number of indisputable facts. Here they are. The scent spray was harmless when Colonel Warrender used it on Mrs Templeton. At some time before she went up to her room with Mr Dakers, enough Slaypest was transferred to the scent spray to kill her. At some time after she was killed the scent spray was emptied and washed out and the remaining scent from the original bottle was poured into it I think there were two, possibly three, persons in the house at that time who could have committed these actions. They are all familiar with the room and its appointments and surroundings. The presence of any one of them in her room would, under normal circumstances, have been unremarkable.’

A voice from outside the group violently demanded: ‘Where is she? Why hasn’t she been brought down to face it?’ And then, with satisfaction: ‘Has she been taken away? Has she?’

Florence advanced into the light.