‘Blast the Ancreds! Here, this won’t do. Come on, let’s tackle the thing and scotch it. You’re thinking like this, aren’t you? There’s a book about embalming in their ghastly drawing-room. It stresses the use of arsenic. Old Ancred went about bragging that he was going to have himself mummified. Any one might have read the book. Sonia Orrincourt was seen doing so. Arsenic, used for rat poison, disappeared in the house. Old Ancred died immediately after altering his Will in the Orrincourt’s favour. There wasn’t an autopsy. If one were made now, the presence of arsenic would be accounted for by the embalming. That’s the thing, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ said Troy, ‘that’s it.’

‘And you’ve been wondering whether the practical jokes and all the rest of the fun and games can be fitted in?’

‘It sounds less possible as you say it.’

‘Good!’ he said quickly turning to her. ‘That’s better. Come on, then. You’ve wondered if the practical jokes were organized by the Orrincourt to put the old man off his favourite grandchild?’

‘Yes. Or by Cedric, with the same motive. You see, Panty was hot favourite before the Raspberry and Flying Cow Period set in.’

‘Yes. So, in short, you’re wondering if one of the Ancreds, particularly Cedric, or Miss Orrincourt, murdered old Ancred, having previously, in effect, hamstrung the favourite.’

‘This is like talking about a nightmare. It leaves off being horrid and turns silly.’

‘All the better,’ he said vigorously. ‘All right. Now, if the lost arsenic was the lethal weapon, the murder was planned long before the party. You understood Millamant to say it had been missing for some time?’

‘Yes. Unless—’

‘Unless Millamant herself is a murderess and was doing an elaborate cover-up.’

‘Because I said one didn’t know what Millamant thought about it, it doesn’t follow that she thought about murder.’

‘Of course it doesn’t, bless your heart. Now, if any one of the Ancreds murdered Sir Henry, it was on the strength of the announcement made at the dinner-party and without any knowledge of the effective Will he made that night. If he made it that night.’

‘Unless one of the legatees thought they’d been cheated and did it out of pure fury.’

‘Or Fenella and Paul, who got nothing? Yes. There’s that.’

‘Fenella and Paul,’ said Troy firmly, ‘are not like that.’

‘And if Desdemona or Thomas or Jenetta—’

‘Jenetta and Thomas are out of the question—’

‘—did it, the practical jokes don’t fit in, because they weren’t there for the earlier ones.’

‘Which leaves the Orrincourt, Cedric, Millamant and Pauline.’

‘I can see it’s the Orrincourt and Cedric who are really bothering you.’

‘More particularly,’ said Troy unhappily, ‘the Orrincourt.’