‘I’d just like, if you don’t mind, to sort it out for myself. Anyone else? The two guests who left early, for instance. Were they in the conservatory party?’

‘Yes.’

‘And left – ?’

‘First,’ Warrender said loudly.

‘So you caught them up in the hall. What were they doing in the hall, sir?’

‘Talking. Leaving. I don’t know exactly.’

‘You don’t remember to whom they were talking?’

‘I cannot,’ Charles said, ‘for the very life of me see why these two comparative strangers, who were gone long before anything happened, should be of the remotest interest to you.’

Alleyn said quickly: ‘I know it sounds quite unreasonable, but they do at the moment seem to have been the cause of other people’s behaviour.’

He saw that for some reason this observation had disturbed Warrender. He looked at Alleyn as if the latter had said something outrageous and penetrating.

‘You see,’ Alleyn explained, ‘in order to establish accident, one does have to make a formal inquiry into the movements of those persons who were nearest to Miss Bellamy up to the time of the accident.’

‘Oh! ‘ Warrender said firmly. ‘Yes. Possibly.’

‘But – Mary – my wife – was there. Still there ! Radiant. There, seen by everybody – I can’t imagine …’ Charles sank back in his chair. ‘Never mind,’ he murmured. ‘Go on.’

Warrender said: ‘Browne and his niece had, I think, been talking to Saracen and Miss Cavendish. When I came into the hall … They were – saying goodbye to Gantry.’

‘I see. And nobody else was concerned in this leave-taking? In the hall?’

There was a long silence. Warrender looked as if somebody had tapped him smartly on the back of the head. His eyes started and he turned to Charles who leant forward grasping the arms of his chair.

‘My God!’ Warrender said. ‘Where is he? What’s become of him? Where’s Richard?‘

IV

Alleyn had been trained over a long period of time to distinguish between simulated and involuntary reactions in human behaviour. He was perhaps better equipped than many of his colleagues in this respect, being fortified by an instinct that he was particularly careful to mistrust. It seldom let him down. He thought now that, whereas Charles Templeton was quite simply astounded by his own forgetfulness, Warrender’s reaction was much less easily defined. Alleyn had a notion that Warrender’s reticence was of the formidable kind which conceals nothing but the essential.

It was Warrender, now, who produced an explanation.

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Just remembered something. Extraordinary we should have forgotten. We’re talking about Richard Dakers.’

‘The playwright?’

‘That’s the man. He’s – you may not know this – he was …’ Warrender boggled inexplicably and looked at his boots. ‘He’s – he was my cousin’s – he was the Templetons’ ward.’

For the first time since Alleyn had entered the room, Charles Templeton looked briefly at Warrender.

‘Does he know about this catastrophe?’ Alleyn asked.