‘I was brought up near Fairfax, Virginia. We were good family but we never had any money. Father gambled and Mother kept telling me how plain I looked. And then I met Mr Stockton at a cotillion ball in Richmond. To my delight, he started courting me. I knew him to be very rich. He had clawed his way up from a poor family and thought that by marrying me it would give him class. He only survived a year of our marriage. The doctor diagnosed a heart attack.

‘I came to London and set out to make myself known. I knew I was psychic and I had read the works of Mr Steiner. I set up my vegetarian society. I lectured all over Britain, and the States, too. I was someone at last.

‘And then that Pomfret creature threatened to destroy me. Have you told the police?’

Rose shook her head.

‘But your parents know about this.’

‘No,’ said Rose, ‘they do not even know I am here.’

‘Good, good, let me think.’

‘There’s nothing to think about,’ said Rose sharply. ‘As soon as I hear that Lord Alfred has confessed, you may have your photograph.’

Angela rose and paced the room, muttering, ‘Must think, must think.’

Rose got to her feet as well. ‘Now that you know the situation . . .’ she was beginning when Angela strode to the book-shelves and lifted out an ugly-looking pistol and levelled it at Rose.

‘Sit down,’ she barked.

Rose and Daisy sank back in their chairs. Daisy remembered throwing herself in front of Rose last year to protect her from a bullet. Somehow, she didn’t think she would ever have the courage to do that again.

‘I detest flittery little débutantes like you, Lady Rose, smug in your own beauty, poking your nose into other people’s business. That fool, Mrs Jerry, said that she couldn’t take any more and was going to the police. I was not blackmailing her for money, but I wanted her to join my society and work for me. I lied and said I had my own photograph back but had kept the one of her. She laughed in my face. So I doctored that champagne and put it in her room and then strangled the old bitch while she lay unconscious.’

‘So no one other than Freddy Pomfret was trying to blackmail you?’

‘No.’

Rose moistened her dry white lips. ‘So it was you who shot Freddy?’

‘Yes, and I enjoyed doing it. I ransacked his flat but couldn’t find anything. Where did you find it?’

‘He had put the material in a cigar box and given it to Tristram Baker-Willis for safekeeping.’

Angela gave a harsh laugh. ‘Amateurs, blundering greedy amateurs out to destroy my reputation. Do you know that the Duchess of Terford has just joined my society? A duchess!’

‘Please do put down that gun,’ said Rose, striving to keep her voice level.