When she was dressed and her hair had been put up, Rose said, ‘There is no need for you to be on duty in the drawing-room. I wish to speak to my parents in private.’

Harry rang the doorbell of Mrs Jerry Trumpington’s home. He hoped he would have more success with her than he had had with Lord Alfred. He handed his card, and after a few moments was ushered into Mrs Jerry’s sitting-room. She was a vast toad-like woman who carried little bits of food about her dress as a testimony to her gluttony. She had eaten quail for luncheon, Harry noticed, identifying a small bone in the black lace on Mrs Jerry’s bosom, followed by, possibly, Dover sole – there were fish bones, also – and, he guessed, in a mornay sauce, the sauce having caused a thin yellow edge on the lace.

‘Why, my very dear Captain,’ she said, her thick lips opening in a smile. ‘How goes the world?’

‘Very baffling,’ said Harry, sitting down opposite her.

‘I was about to take tea. Will you join me?’

‘Too kind.’

Mrs Jerry rang the bell and ordered tea for two.

‘The reason I am here,’ said Harry, ‘is because of the death of Freddy Pomfret.’

‘Poor chap.’

‘Indeed. Why did you pay Freddy ten thousand pounds?’

She sat very still, her slightly bulbous eyes fixed on his face. Then she said, ‘Did I?’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh, I remember. He was short of the ready, that’s all. I’m a generous soul.’

‘Ten thousand pounds would be considered a fortune to most people in this country.’

‘But I am not most people. How did you find out?’

‘I heard something at Scotland Yard. No doubt the police have been in touch with his bank.’ Harry could imagine Mrs Jerry’s fury if she knew the real source of the information.

Two footmen came in carrying the tea-things. Mrs Jerry waited until they had both been served and then waved the servants away. When the door had closed behind them, she said, ‘What’s it got to do with you, anyway?’

‘I am working for his family,’ said Harry, feeling that he really must contact Freddy’s family as soon as possible before he was caught out in his lies.

‘I really think the – er – trade you are in is most distasteful.’ Mrs Jerry ignored the thin bread and butter and the mounds of sandwiches and fruitcakes and selected a meringue filled with cream.

‘Was Freddy blackmailing you?’ asked Harry.

She bit down on the meringue so violently that a shower of meringue crumbs, meringue powder, and a dollop of cream joined the detritus of food on her bosom.

‘Geffout!’ she roared when she could.

‘I beg your pardon?’

She seized a napkin and wiped her mouth. She lumbered to her feet, panting with rage.

‘Out!’ she shouted. ‘And never darken my doorstep again.’