‘Out of the question. I arrived at seven-thirty—Wait a moment.’ He searched his filing cabinet and pulled out another card. ‘Here! I superintended the weighing and dosing of these kids and noted the time. Panty got her quota at eight and was put to bed. I stayed on in the ante-room to their dormitory during the rest of the business and talked to Miss Able. I left her my visiting list for the next twenty-four hours so that she could get me quickly if anything cropped up. It was after nine when I left and this wretched kid certainly hadn’t budged. I had a look at the lot of them. She was asleep with a normal pulse and so on.’

‘That settles Panty, then,’ Alleyn muttered.

‘Look here, has this any bearing on the other business?’

‘I’m not sure. It’s a preposterous story. If you’ve the time and inclination to listen I’ll tell it to you.’

‘I’ve got,’ said Dr Withers, glancing at his watch, ‘twenty-three minutes. Case in half an hour, and I want to hear the racing results before I go out.’

‘I shan’t be more than ten minutes.’

‘Go ahead, then. I should be glad to hear any story, however fantastic, that can connect a practical joke on Monday the nineteenth with the death of Sir Henry Ancred from gastro-enteritis after midnight on Saturday the twenty-fourth.’

Alleyn related all the stories of the practical jokes. Dr Withers punctuated this recital with occasional sounds of incredulity or irritation. When Alleyn reached the incident of the flying cow he interrupted him.

‘The child Panty,’ he said, ‘is capable of every iniquity, but, as I have pointed out, she could not have perpetrated this offence with the blown-up bladder, nor could she have painted the flying cow on Mrs—’ He stopped short. ‘Is this lady—?’ he began.

‘My wife, as it happens,’ said Alleyn, ‘but let it pass.’

‘Good Lord! Unusual that, isn’t it?’

‘Both unusual and bothering in this context. You were saying?’

‘That the child was too seedy that night for it to be conceivable. And you tell me Miss Able (sensible girl that) vouches for her anyway.’

‘Yes.’

‘All right. Well, some other fool, the egregious Cedric in all likelihood, performed these idiocies. I fail to see how they can possibly be linked up with Sir Henry’s death.’

‘You have not,’ Alleyn said, ‘heard of the incident of the book on embalming in the cheese-dish.’

Dr Withers’s mouth opened slightly, but he made no comment, and Alleyn continued his narrative. ‘You see,’ he added, ‘this final trick does bear a sort of family likeness to the others, and, considering the subject matter of the book, and the fact that Sir Henry was embalmed—’

‘Quite so. Because the damned book talks about arsenic they jump to this imbecile conclusion—’