Here they found Desdemona, Pauline, Panty, Thomas and Cedric, assembled under the eye of Detective-Sergeant Thompson. Pauline and Desdemona were in tears. Pauline’s tears were real and ugly. They had left little traces, like those of a snail, down her carefully restrained make-up. Her eyes were red and swollen and she looked frightened. Desdemona, however, was misty, tragic and still beautiful. Thomas sat with his eyebrows raised to their limit and his hair ruffled, gazing in alarm at nothing in particular. Cedric, white and startled, seemed to be checked, by Alleyn’s arrival, in a restless prowl round the room. A paperknife fell from his hands and clattered on the glass top of the curio cabinet.

Panty said: ‘Hallo! Is Sonia dead? Why?’

‘Ssh, darling! Darling, ssh!’ Pauline moaned, and attempted vainly to clasp her daughter in her arms. Panty advanced into the centre of the room and faced Alleyn squarely. ‘Cedric,’ she said loudly, ‘says Sonia’s been murdered. Has she? Has she, Miss Able?’

‘Goodness,’ said Caroline Able in an uneven voice, ‘I call that rather a stupid thing to say, Patricia, don’t you?’

Thomas suddenly walked up to her and put his arm about her shoulders.

‘Has she, Mr Alleyn?’ Panty insisted.

‘You cut off and don’t worry about it,’ Alleyn said. ‘Are you at all hungry?’

‘You bet.’

‘Well, ask Barker from me to give you something rather special, and then put your coat on and see if you can meet the others coming home. Is that all right, Mrs Kentish?’

Pauline waved her hands and he turned to Caroline Able.

‘An excellent idea,’ she said more firmly. Thomas’s hand still rested on her shoulder.

Alleyn led Panty to the door. ‘I won’t go,’ she announced, ‘unless you tell me if Sonia’s dead.’

‘All right, old girl, she is.’ A multiple ejaculation sounded behind him.

‘Like Carabbas?’

‘No!’ said her Aunt Millamant strongly, and added: ‘Pauline, must your child behave like this?’

‘They’ve both gone away,’ Alleyn said. ‘Now cut along and don’t worry about it.’

‘I’m not worrying,’ Panty said, ‘particularly. I dare say they’re in Heaven, and Mummy says I can have a kitten. But a person likes to know.’ She went out.

Alleyn turned and found himself face to face with Thomas.

Behind Thomas he saw Caroline Able stooping over Millamant, who sat fetching her breath in dry sobs, while Cedric bit his nails and looked on. ‘I’m sorry,’ Millamant stammered: ‘it’s just reaction, I suppose. Thank you, Miss Able.’

‘You’ve been perfectly splendid, Mrs Ancred.’

‘Oh, Milly, Milly!’ wailed Pauline. ‘Even you! Even your iron reserve. Oh, Milly!’

‘Oh, God!’ Cedric muttered savagely. ‘I’m so sick of all this.’

‘You,’ Desdemona said, and laughed with professional bitterness. ‘In less tragic circumstances, Cedric, that would be funny.’

‘Please, all of you stop.’