‘I’ve been such a goose, you can’t think. I’ve come to “fess up,” like a good boy,’ he said nauseatingly, and slid round to his familiar position on the floor, leaning against her knees. She held him there, strongly.

‘Mr Alleyn,’ Cedric began, opening his eyes very wide, ‘I couldn’t be more sorry about rushing away just now after Aunt Pauline. Really, it was too stupid. But one does like to tell people things in one’s own way, and there she was, huffing and puffing and going on as if I’d been trying to conceal some dire skeleton in my, I assure you, too drearily barren cupboard.’

Alleyn waited.

‘You see—(Milly, my sweet, this is going to be a faint shock to you, but never mind)—you see, Mr Alleyn, there’s been a—what shall I call it?—a—well, an understanding, of sorts, between Sonia and me. It only really developed quite lately. After dearest Mrs Alleyn came here. She seems to have noticed quite a number of things; perhaps she noticed that.’

‘If I understand you,’ Alleyn said, ‘she, I am sure, did not.’

‘Really?’

‘Are you trying to tell me why you visited Miss Orrincourt’s rooms on the night of your grandfather’s death?’

‘Well,’ Cedric muttered petulantly, ‘after Aunt Pauline’s announcement—and, by the way, she gleaned her information through a nocturnal visit to the archaic offices at the end of the passage—after that there seems to be nothing for it but an elaborate cleaning of the breast, does there?’

‘Cedric,’ Millamant said, ‘what has this woman done to you?’

‘My sweet, nothing, thank God. I’m trying to tell you. She really is too beautiful, Mr Alleyn, don’t you think? I know you didn’t like her, Milly dear, and how right you seem to have been. But I really was quite intrigued and she was so bored and it was only the teeniest flutter, truly. I merely popped in on my way to bed and had a good giggle with her about the frightful doings down below.’

‘Incidentally,’ Alleyn suggested, ‘you may have hoped to hear the latest news about Sir Henry’s Will.’

‘Well, that among other things. You see, I did rather wonder if the flying cow hadn’t been sort of once too often, as it were. Sonia did it before dinner, you know. And then at the dinner the Old Person announced a Will that was really quite satisfactory from both our points of view, and with the insufferable Panty not even a starter, one rather wished Sonia had left well alone.’

‘Cedric,’ said his mother suddenly, ‘I don’t think, dear, you should go on. Mr Alleyn won’t understand. Stop.’

‘But, Milly, my sweet, don’t you see dear old Pauline has already planted a horrid little seed of suspicion, and one simply must tweak it up before it sprouts. Mustn’t one, Mr Alleyn?’