‘I should have thought it sufficiently obvious. You were here – you saw what happened. He picked that little tart up in a saloon bar and brought her here with the deliberate intention of ruining the party for everyone.’

‘Aunt Mary – please,’ Joanna said.

‘It’s true, isn’t it?’ The old woman’s eyes glittered fiercely. ‘He arrived dressed like a tramp as usual and within twenty minutes was trying to break the place up.’

Miller turned enquiringly. Jack Morgan picked up the two halves of the wooden chopping block that lay on the bar. ‘Bruno’s latest parlour trick.’

‘Karate?’

‘That’s right. Imagine what a blow like that would do to somebody’s jaw.’

A brown belt who was soon to face re-grading to first Dan, Miller could have told him in detail. Instead he looked at Marlowe speculatively. ‘That bruise on your face – did he do that?’

‘Look here,’ Marlowe said angrily. ‘I don’t know what all this is leading up to, but if you think I’m laying a complaint against him you’re mistaken. There was a rather undignified squabble – there usually is when Bruno’s around. Nothing more.

‘And he left with Grace Packard. You must have found that rather upsetting, Joanna.’

‘God knows, but she’s had enough practice by now,’ Mary Beresford said. ‘You say he took her home with him?’

‘That’s right, but apparently she only stayed ten minutes or so.’

‘A likely story.’

‘Confirmed by the time the body was found. He says that he gave her ten pounds to pose for him. Would you say that was likely?’

Frank Marlowe laughed harshly. ‘More than that – typical.’

Joanna had gone very white, but hung on to her dignity with, everything she had left. ‘As I’ve already said, he’s very much a law unto himself.’

‘He’s been working on a special commission,’ Jack Morgan said. ‘One of the most important he’s had. It started as a single figure four or five weeks ago and now comprises a group of four. He was discussing with me earlier the question of adding a fifth to give the thing balance.’

Miller nodded. ‘Yes, he did mention that.’

‘Then why did you have to ask?’ Joanna said sharply.

Miller frowned. ‘I’m afraid I don’t follow you.’

‘Are we to take it that my fiancé is under some kind of suspicion in this business?’

‘Routine, Joanna, pure routine at the moment. But it has to be done, you must see that surely.’

‘I don’t at all,’ she said hotly. ‘What I do see is that you were a guest in my house earlier this evening because I had imagined you a friend.’