She put a hand on his shoulder, leant across him and pulled out a drawer in her desk, taking her time about it. ‘Here it is,’ she said and dropped a letter in front of him. ‘Go on,’ she said. ‘Read it.’

It was written in Mr Period’s old-fashioned hand, on his own letter-paper.

‘My dear,’ it read, ‘Please don’t think it too silly of me to be fussed about a little thing, but I can’t help feeling that you might very naturally, have drawn a quite unwarrantable conclusion from the turn our conversation took today. It really is a little too much to have to defend one’s own ancestry, but I care enough about such matters to feel I must assure you that mine goes back as far as I, or anyone else, might wish. I’m afraid Hal, poor dear, had developed a slight thing on the subject. But never mind! I don’t! Forgive me for bothering you, but I know you will understand.

As ever,

P.P.P.’

‘Have you any idea,’ Alleyn said, ‘what he’s driving at?’

‘Not a notion. He dined here last night and was normal.’

‘Would you have expected another sort of letter from him?’

‘Another sort? What sort? Oh! I see what you mean. About Ormsbury, poor brute? He’s dead, you know.’

‘Yes.’

‘With P.P.’s passion for condolences it would have been more likely. You mean he’s done the wrong thing? So, who was meant to have this one?’

‘May I at all events keep it?’

‘Do, if you want to.’

Alleyn pocketed the letter. ‘I’d better say at once that you may have been the last person to speak to Harold Cartell, not excepting his murderer.’

She had a cigarette ready in her mouth and the flame from the lighter didn’t waver until she drew on it.

‘How do you make that out?’ she asked easily. ‘Oh, I know. Somebody’s told you about the balcony scene. Who? Andrew, I suppose, or his girl. Or P.P., of course. He cut in on it from his window.’

‘So you had a brace of Romeos in reverse?’

‘Like hell I did. Both bald and me, if we face it, not quite the dewy job either.’

Alleyn found himself at once relishing this speech and knowing that she had intended him to have exactly that reaction.

‘The dewy jobs,’ he said, ‘have their limitations.’

‘Whereas for me,’ Desirée said, suddenly overdoing it, ‘the sky’s the limit. Did you know that?’

He decided to disregard this and pressed on. ‘Why,’ he asked, ‘having deposited Mr Period at his garden gate did you leave the car, cross the ditch and serenade Mr Cartell?’

‘I saw him at his window and thought it would be fun.’

‘What did you say?’

‘I think I said: “But soft what light from yonder window breaks.”’

‘And after that?’

‘I really don’t remember. I pulled his leg a bit.’

‘Did you tell him you were on the warpath?’