Connie herself was lashed into a dull purple robe, beneath the hem of which appeared the decent evidence of a sensible nightgown and a pair of extremely grubby slippers. Leonard Leiss was in trousers and shirt and Moppett in the negligée she had worn that morning. She was made up. Her pale lipstick had been smudged and her hair was dishevelled. She looked both sulky and frightened. Trudi, in a casque of hair curlers, but still fully dressed, seemed to be transfixed by astonishment.

Connie said: ‘Look here, this is all pretty ghastly, isn’t it? How is he?’

‘He’s not conscious.’

‘Yes, but I mean, how bad is it?’

Alleyn said they were not sure how bad it was.

‘Well, but what happened?’ Connie persisted, looking resentfully at Mr Fox. ‘We don’t know anything. Turfing everybody out of bed and asking all these questions.’

‘Oh, do pipe down, Auntie,’ Moppett ejaculated with some violence. ‘It’s perfectly obvious what it’s all about.’

‘It’s not obvious to me.’

‘Fancy!’ Leonard remarked offensively.

Fox said with forbearance: ‘Well, now, Mr Alleyn, we’re getting on slowly. I’ve tried to explain the necessity, as a purely routine affair, for checking up these good people’s whereabouts.’

‘Certainly.’

‘Yes. Well, it seems Miss Cartell has been at home this evening, apart from an interval when she took her little dog into the garden –’

‘That’s right,’ Connie interrupted indignantly. ‘And if it wasn’t for that damned bitch, I’d have been in my bed an hour ago. And where’s my Li? That’s what I want to know. He’s a valuable dog and if anything’s happened to him, chasing after that mongrel, I’ll hold you responsible.’ She wrung her hands distractedly.

‘The little dog,’ Fox explained, ‘has gone off for a romp.’

Moppett laughed shrilly.

‘What happened exactly?’

‘I’ll tell you what happened,’ Connie shouted. ‘I was going to bed and he asked for outies. He’d already had them once, so I might have known, but he kept on asking. So I took him down. No sooner were we in the garden than I saw that brute and so did he. She went floundering off and he was out of my arms and after her before I could stop him. I’m a bit clumsy because of my thumb. Otherwise,’ she added proudly, ‘he wouldn’t have made it.’

‘Miss Cartell,’ Fox explained, ‘was in the garden calling the little dog when I arrived.’

‘There’ll have to be an organized search,’ Connie blustered. ‘That’s all. An organized search. I’m jolly sorry about P.P. but I can’t help it.’

‘How long ago did this happen?’

‘Did what happen?’

‘The Pekinese business.’

‘How the hell should I know!’ Connie said rudely. ‘I seem to have been out there for hours. All over the village in this kit. Look at my feet! Nobody about, luckily. Not that I care. God knows where he’s got to.’

‘What time did you go to bed?’

‘I haven’t been to bed.’

‘Well, when did you get ready to go to bed?’