It was not pleasant to watch the blood sink from Cedric’s face. The process left his eyelids and the pouches under his eyes mauvish. Small grooves appeared beside his nostrils. His colourless lips pouted and then widened into an unlovely smile.

‘Well, really!’ he tittered. ‘That just shows you, doesn’t it? So darling Sonia has confided in you.’ And after a moment’s hesitation he added: ‘As far as I’m concerned, dear Mr Alleyn, that’s the end of darling Sonia.’

‘Perhaps I should explain,’ Alleyn said after a pause, ‘that Miss Orrincourt has not made any statement about the practical jokes.’

‘She hasn’t?’ The ejaculation was so incisive that it was difficult to believe Cedric had uttered it. He now lowered his head and appeared to look at the carpet between his feet. Alleyn saw his hands slide over each other. ‘How perfectly futile,’ Cedric’s voice said. ‘Such a very old gag. Such an ancient wheeze! I didn’t know but you’ve just told me! And in I go, as they say, boots and all.’ He raised his face. Its pinkness had returned and its expression suggested a kind of boyish ruefulness. ‘Now do promise you won’t be lividly angry. It sounds too childish, I know. But I implore you, dear Mr Alleyn, to look about you. Observe the peculiar flavour of Katzenjammer Castle. The façade now. The utterly unnerving inequalities of the façade. The terrifying Victoriana within. The gloom. Note particularly the gloom.’

‘I’m afraid,’ Alleyn said, ‘that I don’t follow this. Unless you’re going to tell me you hoped to enliven the architecture and decor of Ancreton by painting spectacles and flying cows on your grandfather’s portrait.’

‘But I didn’t!’ Cedric protested shrilly. ‘That miraculous portrait! No, believe me, I didn’t.’

‘And the paint on the banister?’

‘I didn’t do that either. Darling Mrs Alleyn! I wouldn’t have dreamed of it.’

‘But at least you seem to have known about it.’

‘I didn’t do it,’ he repeated.

‘The message written in grease-paint on the mirror? And the grease-paint on the cat?’

Cedric gave a nervous giggle. ‘Well—’

‘Come,’ said Alleyn. ‘You had dark red grease-paint under your finger-nail, you know.’

‘What sharp eyes!’ cried Cedric. ‘Dearest Mrs Alleyn! Such a help she must be to you.’

‘You did, in fact—’

‘The Old Person,’ Cedric interrupted, ‘had been particularly rococo. I couldn’t resist. The cat, too. It was a kind of practical pun. The cat’s whiskers!’

‘And had you anything to do with the squeaking cushion in his chair?’

‘Wasn’t it too robust and Rabelaisian? Sonia bought it and I—I can’t deny it—I placed it there. But why not? If I might make a tiny squeak of protest, dear Mr Alleyn, has all this got anything to do with the business in hand?’