‘I’ll tell my sister and my sister-in-law,’ Dessy began, but Alleyn interrupted her. ‘If we might just have a word with you first,’ he said. And by Dessy’s manner, at once portentous and dignified, he knew that this suggestion was not unpleasing to her. She led them to the small sitting-room where Troy had found Sonia Orrincourt and Cedric giggling together on the sofa. Desdemona placed herself on this sofa. She sat down, Alleyn noticed, quite beautifully; not glancing at her objective, but sinking on it in one movement and then elegantly disposing her arms.

‘I expect,’ he began, ‘that your brother has explained the official attitude to this kind of situation. We’re obliged to make all sorts of inquiries before we can take any further action.’

‘I see,’ said Desdemona, nodding owlishly. ‘Yes, I see. Go on.’

‘To put it baldly, do you yourself think there is any truth in the suggestion made by the anonymous letter-writer?’

Desdemona pressed the palms of her hands carefully against her eyes. ‘If I could dismiss it,’ she cried. ‘If I could!’

‘You have no idea, I suppose, who could have written the letters?’ She shook her head. Alleyn wondered if she had glanced at him through her fingers.

‘Have any of you been up to London since your father’s funeral?’

‘How frightful!’ she said, dropping her hands and gazing at him. ‘I was afraid of this. How frightful!’

‘What?’

‘You think one of us wrote the letter? Someone at Ancreton?’

‘Well, really,’ said Alleyn, stifling his exasperation, ‘it’s not a preposterous conjecture, is it?’

‘No, no. I suppose not. But what a disturbing thought.’

‘Well, did any of you go to London—’

‘Let me think, let me think,’ Desdemona muttered, again covering her eyes. ‘In the evening. After we had—had—after Papa’s funeral, and after Mr Rattisbon had—’ She made another little helpless gesture.

‘—had read the Will?’ Alleyn suggested.

‘Yes. That evening, by the seven-thirty. Thomas and Jenetta (my sister-in-law) and Fenella (her daughter) and Paul (my nephew, Paul Kentish) all went up to London.’

‘And returned? When?’

‘Not at all. Jenetta doesn’t live here and Fenella and Paul, because of—However, Fenella has joined her mother in a flat and I think Paul’s staying with them. My brother Thomas, as you know, lives in London.’

‘And nobody else has left Ancreton?’

Yes, it seemed that the following day Millamant and Cedric and Desdemona herself had gone up to London by the early morning train. There was a certain amount of business to be done. They returned in the evening. It was by that evening’s post, the Wednesday’s, Alleyn reflected, that the anonymous letter reached the Yard. He found by dint of cautious questioning that they had all separated in London and gone their several ways to meet in the evening train.

‘And Miss Orrincourt?’ Alleyn asked.