When Alleyn left, Paul showed him into the hall, and, after some hesitation, asked if he might walk with him a little way. They went together, head-down against a blustering wind, along Cheyne Walk. Ragged clouds scurried across the sky, and the sounds of river traffic were blown intermittently against their chilled ears. Paul, using his stick, limped along at a round pace, and for some minutes in silence.

At last he said: ‘I suppose it’s true that you can’t escape your heredity.’ And as Alleyn turned his head to look at him, he went on slowly: ‘I meant to tell you that story quite differently. Without any build-up. Fen did, too. But somehow when we got going something happened to us. Perhaps it was Aunt Jen’s opposition. Or perhaps when there’s anything like a crisis we can’t escape a sense of audience. I heard myself doing the same sort of thing over there.’ He jerked his head vaguely towards the east. ‘The gay young officer rallying his men. It went down quite well with them, too, but it makes me feel pretty hot under the collar when I think about it now. And about the way we strutted our stuff back there at Aunt Jen’s.’

‘You made your points very neatly,’ said Alleyn.

‘A damn’ sight too neatly,’ Paul rejoined, grimly. ‘That’s why I did think I’d like to try and say without any flourishes that we do honestly believe that all this stuff about poison has simply been concocted by Cedric to try and upset the Will. And we think it would be a pretty poor show to let him get away with it. On all counts.’

Alleyn didn’t reply immediately, and Paul said, nervously: ‘I suppose it’d be quite out of order for me to ask whether you think we’re right.’

‘Ethically,’ said Alleyn, ‘yes. But I don’t think you realized the implications. Your aunt did.’

‘I know, Aunt Jen’s very fastidious. It’s the dirty linen in public that she hates.’

‘And with reason,’ said Alleyn.

‘Well, we’ll all have to lump it. But what I meant really was, were we right in our deductions?’

‘I ought to return an official and ambiguous answer to that,’ Alleyn said. ‘But I won’t. I may be wrong, but on the evidence that we’ve got up to date I should say your deductions were ingenious and almost entirely wrong.’

A sharp gust carried away the sound of his voice.

‘What?’ said Paul, distantly and without emphasis. ‘I didn’t quite hear—’

‘Wrong,’ Alleyn repeated, strongly. ‘As far as I can judge, you know, quite wrong.’

Paul stopped short, and, dipping his head to meet the wind, stared at Alleyn with an expression not of dismay, but of doubt, as if he still thought he must have misunderstood.

‘But I don’t see…we thought…it all hangs together—’