‘It was her manner more than anything. I’m quite positive she didn’t do it. I know she’s got a record for practical jokes—but wait till I get to the end. Don’t fluster the witness.’

‘Why not?’ said Alleyn, stooping his head.

‘To continue,’ said Troy after a moment or two, and this time he let her go on to the end. It was an odd story. He wondered if she realized quite how odd it was.

‘I don’t know whether I’ve conveyed the general dottiness of that monstrous house,’ she said. ‘I mean, the queer little things that turned up. Like the book on embalming amongst the objets d’art and the missing rat bane.’

‘Why do you put them together?’

‘I dunno. I suppose because there’s arsenic in both of them.’

‘You are not by any chance, my angel, attempting to land me with a suspected poisoning case on my return to your arms?’

‘Well,’ said Troy after a pause, ‘you would think that one up, wouldn’t you?’ She screwed round and looked at him. ‘And he’s been embalmed, you know. By the Messrs Mortimer and Loame. I met them in the hall with their black bags. The only catch in it is the impossibility of regarding any of the Ancreds in the light of a slow poisoner. But it would fit.’

‘A little too neatly, I fancy.’ With a trace of reluctance he added: ‘What were some of the other queer little things that happened?’

‘I’d like to know what Cedric and the Orrincourt were giggling about on the sofa, and whether the Orrincourt was coughing or laughing in the governess-cart. I’d even like to know what it was she bought in the chemist’s shop. And I’d like to know more about Millamant. One never knew what Millamant was thinking, except that she doted perpetually on her ghastly Cedric. It would have been in her Cedric’s interest, of course, to sicken Sir Henry of poor old Panty, who, by the way, has a complete alibi for the flying cow. Her alibi’s a dangerous drug. For ringworm.’

‘Has this odious child been taking thallium?’

‘Do you know about thallium?’

‘I’ve heard of it.’

‘It establishes her alibi for the flying cow,’ said Troy. ‘I’d better explain.’

‘Yes,’ Alleyn agreed when she had finished, ‘that lets her out for the flying cow.’

‘She didn’t do any of them,’ said Troy firmly. ‘I wish now that Paul and Fenella and I had gone on with our experiment.’

‘What was that to be?’

‘It involved your collaboration,’ said Troy, looking at him out of the corners of her eyes.

‘Like hell it did!’

‘Yes. We wrapped up the paint-brush that had been used for the flying cow and we were going to ask all of them to let us take their finger-prints for you to compare with it. Would you have minded?’