You could see to ’Ackney marshes,

If it wasn’t for the houses in between.

Rose and Harry applauded loudly and the others followed suit. ‘You do that Cockney bit very well, my dear,’ said Lady Glensheil. ‘But something more soothing now, I think. Miss Chatterton, perhaps you would oblige?’

Maisie sat down at the piano and began to murder Chopin.

Daisy came and sat next to Rose, her face flushed and her eyes shining. Rose was going to give her a lecture on her behaviour, but then thought that in her music-hall days Daisy had known a freedom denied to society women.

Harry had joined the card players. Rose thought he might at least have joined her. They were, after all, supposed to be investigating this murder. She felt tired and sulky.

‘I think I’ll retire now,’ she said to Daisy.

‘Good idea,’ agreed Daisy, but only because she had agreed to meet Becket in the gardens later.

Harry covertly watched Rose and Daisy leave the room. What a bore these cards were, he thought. He played another hand and then got up from the table and excused himself.

An hour later, Daisy, with a shawl over her head, waited in the garden at the back of the house. The air was full of the scent of lilac. She jumped nervously as Becket appeared in the darkness beside her.

‘I never heard you coming,’ she whispered. ‘Have you found out anything from the servants?’

‘Only that Lord Alfred plays backgammon.’

‘So do I!’

‘I mean, how shall I put this – he prefers gentlemen to ladies.’

‘Ah, now there’s something someone could have been blackmailing him about.’

‘Exactly. But what sort of proof would they have?’

‘There are brothels, you know, for that sort of thing.’

‘You’ve led a rough life.’

Daisy shrugged. ‘Comes in handy sometimes.’

‘But I still can’t see how it would work. Someone goes to Lord Alfred and says, “I saw you go in the door of such-and-such a place.” He’d deny it. Can’t ask the people who run the place, if it’s a high-class one. They keep their trade by shutting up about their clients.’

‘Photographs. What about photographs? Someone with one of those Kodak cameras.’

‘Could be. If that’s the case, I wonder if they were destroyed.’

Daisy sighed. ‘I’m beginning to think the murderer did destroy them and that’s the end of it. Then the three have alibis. But how do they know what time he was actually killed? Rose told me after dinner that Freddy had given his manservant the night off and yet it was the manservant who found the body.’

‘The manservant would sleep there, so he’d come back later – anyway, that’s what it said in the newspapers – find Freddy dead and call the police. The manservant left at six in the evening and returned at eleven, so they’ve been collecting alibis for that time.’