‘It’s funny. Because, before this blew up I was thinking of Troy. I’m coming in tomorrow evening and I wondered if I could bring a young man with me.’

‘My dear child, she’ll be delighted. Do I detect –?’

‘No!’ Nicola said in a hurry. ‘You don’t detect anything. He paints.’

‘Ah. Mr Andrew Bantling?’

‘I suppose you spotted the paint under his fingernail.’

‘So I did. It reminded me of my wife.’

‘That sounds human, anyway.’

Alleyn said: ‘Look here, Nicola, we’ll have to keep all this on an aseptically impersonal basis, you know. I’ve got to look into a case that may well involve something that is generally called a serious charge. You, unfortunately may be a relevant witness. I wish it wasn’t like that, but it is. Okay?’

‘Do I have to call you Superintendent?’

‘You needn’t call me anything. Now, let’s press on, shall we? I’m bringing Mr Fox in to take notes.’

‘Lor!’ Nicola looked at him for a moment and then said: ‘Yes, okay. I won’t be tiresome. I do see.’

‘Of course you do.’

Fox came in and was introduced.

In great detail, Alleyn led her through the events of the past twenty-four hours and as he did so it seemed to Nicola that she grew physically colder. Her relationship with the Alleyns was something that she had taken for granted. Without realizing that she did so, she had depended upon them, as the young do with established friends, for a sort of anchorage. They were old enough to give her a feeling of security and young enough, she felt, to ‘understand’. She had been free to turn up at their London house when she felt like it and was one of the few people that Alleyn’s wife could endure in the studio when she was working. With Alleyn himself, Nicola had progressed by way of a schoolgirl crush, from which she soon managed to recover, into a solid affection. She called him ‘Le Cid’ shortened it into ‘Cid’ and by this time had forgotten the origin of the pun.

Now, here he was, CID in action, being friendly enough: considerate and impersonal, but, she had to face it, quietly panic-striking. She began to see him in headline terms. ‘Superintendent Alleyn interviews society secretary.’

‘Don’t,’ Alleyn’s voice said, ‘go fussing yourself with unnecessary complications. Be as objective as you can and it’ll all pass off very quietly. Where had we got to? Ah, yes. You’ve arrived. You’ve started on your job. You’re assisting at the pre-luncheon drinks party. This consists of Mr Cartell; his sister, Miss Constance Cartell; his former wife, the soi-disant Lady Bantling; her present husband, Mr Bimbo Dodds; her son by her first marriage, Mr Andrew Bantling; Miss Cartell’s adopted niece or what-not, what’s she called – Miss Mary or Moppett – what?’

‘Ralston, I think.’

‘That’s right. And the Moppett’s boyfriend, Mr Leonard Leiss. And, of course, Mr Period. So we have the piquant situation of a lady with two husbands, a young man with two step-fathers, and a brother and sister with a courtesy niece. How did the party go?’