He hummed a little air for a moment or two and then continued: ‘Thomas and Dessy and the Honourable Mrs A. are all pouring in on Friday night. The Birthday is on Saturday, did you realize? The Old Person and the Ancient of Days will spend Sunday in bed, the one suffering from gastronomic excess, the other from his exertions as Ganymede. The family will no doubt pass the day in mutual recrimination. The general feeling is that the pièce-de-résistance for the Birthday will be an announcement of the new Will.’

‘But, good Lord—!” Troy ejaculated. Cedric talked her down. ‘Almost certain, I assure you. He has always made public each new draft. He can’t resist the dramatic mise-en-scène.’

‘But how often does he change his Will?’

‘I’ve never kept count,’ Cedric confessed after a pause, ‘but on an average I should say once every two years, though for the last three years Panty has held firm as first favourite. While she was still doing baby-talk and only came here occasionally he adored her, and she, most unfortunately, was crazy about him. Pauline must curse the day when she manoeuvred the school to Ancreton. Last time I was grossly unpopular and down to the bare bones of the entail. Uncle Thomas was second to Panty with the general hope that he would marry and have a son, and I remain a celibate with Ancreton as a millstone round my poor little neck. Isn’t it all too tricky?’

There was scarcely a thing that Cedric did or said of which Troy did not wholeheartedly disapprove, but it was impossible to be altogether bored by him. She found herself listening quite attentively to his recital, though after a time his gloating delight in Panty’s fall from grace began to irritate her.

‘I still think,’ she said, ‘that Panty didn’t play these tricks on her grandfather.’ Cedric, with extraordinary vehemence, began to protest, but Troy insisted. ‘I’ve talked to her about it. Her manner, to my mind, was conclusive. Obviously she didn’t know anything about last night’s affair. She’d never heard of the squeaking cushion.’

‘That child,’ Cedric announced malevolently, ‘is incredibly, terrifyingly subtle. She is not an Ancred for nothing. She was acting. Depend upon it, she was acting.’

‘I don’t believe it. And what’s more, she didn’t know her way to my room.’

Cedric, who was biting his nails, paused and stared at her. After a long pause he said: ‘Didn’t know her way to your room? But, dearest Mrs Alleyn, what has that got to do with it?’