‘Convince us of that,’ Alleyn said, ‘and we’re your slaves for ever in the CID.’

‘No, but really. They’re so absurd, you know, my in-laws. I’m very attracted to them, but you can’t imagine how absurd they can be.’ Her voice died away. After a moment’s reflection she said: ‘But Mrs Alleyn saw them. She must have told you.’

‘A little.’

‘At one time it was fifth columnists. Pauline suspected such a nice little Austrian doctor who’s since taken a very important job at a big clinic. At that time he was helping with the children. She said something told her. And then it was poor Miss Able who was supposed to be undermining her influence with Panty. I wonder if, having left the stage, Pauline’s obliged to find some channel for her histrionic instincts. They all do it. Naturally, they resented Miss Orrincourt, and resentment and suspicion are inseparable with the Ancreds.’

‘What did you think of Miss Orrincourt?’

‘I? She’s too lovely, isn’t she? In her way, quite flawless.’

‘Apart from her beauty?’

‘There didn’t seem to be anything else. Except a very robust vulgarity.’

‘But does she really think as objectively as all that?’ Alleyn wondered. ‘Her daughter stood to lose a good deal through Sonia Orrincourt. Could she have achieved such complete detachment?’ He said: ‘You were there, weren’t you, when the book on embalming appeared in the cheese-dish?’

She made a slight grimace. ‘Oh, yes.’

‘Have you any idea who could have put it there?’

‘I’m afraid I rather suspected Cedric. Though why…For no reason except that I can’t believe any of the others would do it. It was quite horrible.’

‘And the anonymous letters?’

‘I feel it must have been the same person. I can’t imagine how any of the Ancreds—after all they’re not—However.’

She had a trick of letting her voice fade out as if she had lost faith in the virtue of her sentences. Alleyn felt that she pushed the suggestion of murder away from her, with both hands, not so much for its dreadfulness as for its offence against taste.

‘You think, then,’ he said, ‘that their suspicion of Miss Orrincourt is unfounded and that Sir Henry died naturally?’

‘That’s it. I’m quite sure it’s all a make-up. They think it’s true. They’ve just got one of their “things” about it.’

‘That explanation doesn’t quite cover the discovery of a tin of rat-bane in her suitcase, does it?’

‘Then there must be some other explanation.’

‘The only one that occurs to me,’ Alleyn said, ‘is that the tin was deliberately planted, and if you accept that you accept something equally serious: an attempt to place suspicion of murder upon an innocent person. That in itself constitutes—’