‘I won’t go, of course,’ she said opening her eyes very wide, ‘if you don’t want me to but you can see, can’t you, that I’m not actually dressed for the prevailing climate? It’s a trifle chilly, this morning, isn’t it?’

‘I’m sure Mr Leiss will lend you his dressing-gown.’

It was a brocade and velvet affair and lay across the foot of the bed. She put it on.

‘Give us a fag, ducks,’ she said to Leonard.

‘Help yourself.’

She reached for his case. ‘It’s not one of those –?’ she began and then stopped short. ‘Fanks, ducks,’ she said and lit a cigarette, lounging across the bed.

The room grew redolent of Virginian tobacco.

The wardrobe doors were lined with looking-glass. In them Alleyn caught a momentary glimpse of Moppett leaning urgently towards Leonard and of Leonard baring his teeth at her. He mouthed something and closed his hand over her wrist. The cigarette quivered between her fingers. Leonard turned his head as Alleyn moved the door and their images swung out of sight.

Alleyn’s fingers slid into the pockets of Leonard’s check suit, dinner-suit and camel-hair overcoat. They discovered three greasy combs, a pair of wash-leather gloves, a membership card from a Soho club called La Hacienda, a handkerchief, loose change, a pocket-book and finally, in the evening-trousers and the overcoat, the object of their search: strands of cigarette tobacco. He withdrew a thread and sniffed at it. Turkish. The hinges of Mr Period’s case he had noticed, were a bit loose.

He came from behind the wardrobe door with the garments in question over his arm. Moppett, who now had her feet up, exclaimed with a fair show of gaiety: ‘Look, Face, he’s going to valet you.’

Alleyn said: ‘I’d like to borrow these things for the moment. I’ll give you a receipt, of course.’

‘Like hell you will,’ Leonard ejaculated.

‘If you object, I can apply for a search-warrant.’

‘Darling, don’t be bloody-minded,’ Moppett said. ‘After all, what does it matter?’

‘It’s the principle of the thing,’ Leonard mumbled through bleached lips. ‘That’s what I object to. People break in without a word of warning and start talking about bodies and – and –’

‘And false pretences. And attempted fraud. And theft,’ Alleyn put in. ‘As you say, it’s the principle of the thing. May I borrow these garments?’

‘Okay. Okay. Okay.’

‘Thank you.’

Alleyn laid the overcoat and dinner-suit across a chair and then went methodically through a suitcase and the drawers of a tallboy: there, wrapped in a sock he came upon a flick-knife. He turned with it in his hand, and found Leonard staring at him.

‘This,’ Alleyn said, ‘is illegal. Where did you get it?’

‘I picked it up,’ Leonard said, ‘in the street. Illegal, is it? Fancy.’

‘I shall take care of it.’