“Um . . .” Redfyre started hesitantly. “Hard to put yourself in such a tricky situation from this distance, but, er, had I been there, I’d have jolly well given the two remaining bars a thorough going-over. Height of the summer season. By day at least those bars must have been in what my chemistry master would have called a ‘malleable and ductile state.’ Eh?”

“You’re right! It occurred to me that they might have picked up a crunchy filling, moulded in during their melted state. I took a knife and cut one in two. Lengthways. It was certainly squidgy, but it was entirely made of chocolate. No filling. The second one also. You can imagine the self-righteous fuss Syd made! I’d ruined his mother’s present. No, he didn’t want to eat it now that I’d gone and spoiled it. The others could have it. He owed them, anyway. He flounced and pouted; his tears dripped. He showed every sign of hating me and encouraged the others to do the same in his snide way. And it worked. They did begin to mistrust me from that moment. Quite simply, Syd, in the face of the worst his officer could do, had proven himself innocent of a dire crime. Their further thought was that perhaps that officer had something to hide under a trumped-up accusation. After all, I had previous form for doing down Syd! Who had declared that his biscuit-scrounging proclivities should be discouraged? I often caught him looking at me sideways with the dying trace of a knowing sneer on his face.”

“How did you resolve the problem of accounting for the, er, treasure trove when you made it back to the regiment?”

“It was Ratty who made the sound suggestion! He always went straight to the point. We all sat down and began to plan how best to avoid any charge of looting. Ratty got fed up with all the ratiocination! He said, ‘For Gawd’s sake! Just declare the gold! They’ll be thrilled to get their hands on it! Ten secret pockets, ten bars to fill them. Nobody’s going to turn round and say, And what else do you have to declare? Come out with some half-baked story about what may—or may not—have been a handful of uncut diamonds that we carelessly allowed to go missing, and the odds are they’re going to get suspicious. We’d all be questioned and tormented until we cracked and spilled the beans, and then we’d be shot at dawn for treachery.’

“He was right, of course, and that’s exactly what we did. We wrote off the diamonds and declared the gold.”

“When did you last clap eyes on Sydney Fox?”