Unconsciously, both men leaned forward over the table at the same moment, eager to get on, the map between them. Any observer would have recognised two commanders planning a military operation.

“Let’s clear away the undergrowth,” Redfyre said briskly. “You can be absolutely certain that no one other than your company of six came near the cabin and its environs at the time of the crime or the twenty-four hours before?”

“Certain.”

“So if you’re telling the truth, the diamonds were taken out of the basin at some time before breakfast on the eighth day—the Wednesday. The day after the funeral.”

“That’s so. It could have happened on the Tuesday, but I was there on the spot directing things every minute. I would have noticed any funny business. My best guess is that the stones disappeared when Lieutenant Hardy and I were absent on the railway line. It makes sense.”

“You’ve told me you normally worked together in pairs—a rough precaution, I’m assuming, against a quick pocketing of a slab of gold or an interesting lump from the sugar basin?”

“That’s true.”

“Useless!” Redfyre commented. “Well-intentioned, perhaps, but I shall rule it out as a consideration in the little enquiry we’re about to pull off. It doesn’t work. One of each pair goes to the latrines, for a bath in the river, tracks down an antelope and gets lost for half an hour . . . knows the truth and is loyal to his other half or is in it together with him. People alibiing each other is a continual hazard. I discount such stories. No, any alibiing your men came up with should be regarded as not to be trusted without further evidence. Still there is one advantage to this pairing system of yours—it reduces the activities of the company to three instead of six. Let’s go through the day’s activities between breakfast and breakfast for each pair, starting with yourself and Lieutenant Abel Hardy.”

“Nickname ‘Oily,’” the captain supplied.

“Why Oily?”

“Oh, you know the army, everyone has to have a nickname.”

“Ah yes.”

“The men catch on to quirks of character with alarming speed. The lieutenant did have a certain, um, emollience of manner. To begin with. In the nicest way—if two men were scrapping, he would intervene. Pour oil on troubled waters? I think the men had in mind the useful qualities of an oil can on engine parts rather than personal charm.”

“A fixer?”

“A bit harsh, but yes. He also was capable of seeing things through. An ideal lieutenant, in fact. We had the same kind of grammar school background and Christian upbringing. Much in common.”

“So you trusted him?”

“As much as I trusted any of my men, or even myself. Which is to say, hardly at all. Let’s say, rather, I understood him.”

“Tell me how you spent your day.”