‘Yes, dear,’ Gantry agreed and refrained with some difficulty, Alleyn thought, from casting his eyes up to heaven. ‘In the hall I had a word with her about reading the part for me,’ he said.

‘Right. And,’ Alleyn pursued, ‘might that not explain why Dakers also wanted to have a further word with Miss Lee?’

They agreed feverishly.

‘Strange,’ he continued, ‘that this explanation didn’t occur to any of you.’

Bertie laughed musically. ‘Weren’t we sillies?’ he asked. ‘Fancy!’

‘Perhaps you all hurtled into the hall in order to offer your congratulations to Miss Lee?’

‘That’s right!’ Bertie cried, opening his eyes very wide, ‘So we did! And anyway,’ he added, ‘I wanted the loo. That was really why I came out. Anything else was purely incidental. I’d forgotten.’

‘Well,’ Alleyn remarked, ‘since you’re all so bad at remembering your motives, I suppose I’d better go on cooking them up for you.’

Pinky Cavendish made a quick expostulatory movement with her hands. ‘Yes?’ Alleyn asked her. ‘What is it?’

‘Nothing. Not really. Only – I wish you wouldn’t make one feel shabby,’ Pinky said.

‘Do I? I’m sorry about that.’

‘Look!’ she said. ‘We’re all of us shocked and horrified about Mary. She was our friend: a great friend. No, Timmy, please let me. She was tricky and temperamental and exacting and she said and did things that we’d rather forget about now. The important thing to remember is that one way or another, at one time or another, we’ve all loved her. You couldn’t help it,’ Pinky said, ‘or I couldn’t. Perhaps I should only speak for myself.’

Alleyn asked gently: ‘Are you trying to tell me that you are protecting her memory?’

‘You might put it like that,’ Pinky said.

‘Nonsense, dear,’ Gantry said impatiently. ‘It doesn’t arise.’

Alleyn decided to dig a little further.

‘The farewells being accomplished,’ he said, ‘and the two guests departed, what did you all do? Miss Cavendish?’

‘Oh, dear! What did I do? I know! I tried to nip upstairs but the camera men were all over the bottom steps so I returned to the party.’

‘Mr Saracen?’

‘The gents. Downstairs. Last, as you’ve observed, on the right. Then I beetled back, bright as a button, for the speeches.’

‘Mr Gantry?’

‘I returned to the drawing-room, heard the speeches, and helped Templeton clear the way for the’ – he jibbed for a moment – ‘for what would have been the last scene. The opening of the presents.’

‘Colonel Warrender?’

Warrender was staring at some part of the wall above Alleyn’s head. ‘Went back,’ he said.

‘Where?’

‘To the party.’

‘Oo!’ Bertie said.

‘Yes, Mr Saracen?’

‘Nothing,’ Bertie said hurriedly. ‘Pay no attention.’

Alleyn looked round at them all. ‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘hasn’t Richard Dakers, up till now, written his plays exclusively for Miss Bellamy? Light comedies? Husbandry in Heaven doesn’t suggest a light comedy.’