“And if you’ll look again at the wider shot of the courtyard, you’ll see that the centre of the court is full of exotic shrubs—there’s a particularly good magnolia. He landed on a strip of paving—a water channel, I’d say—but his body, lying flat as it was, was not noticeable from the far side. I had to lean right out to catch a glimpse of it myself.”

“Guests? Did you have the sense to—”

“I did. I signed for it in triplicate for the porter, sir. Here it is. Two guests, indeed, for that evening. That nice young Mr. Gisbourne brought in the first: a certain Noël Coward, at six-oh-two, and then later, at six-fifty, we have a gentleman who appeared by himself but with prior instructions from Fanshawe to be admitted. Known in the portering trade as a PG, persona grata. Let ’im up, no questions asked! This was a certain Count Draco of Draconia, apparently. The porter maintained his sangfroid. He ‘gets all sorts at this time of year,’ he tells me. ‘But the ones in capes are usually quite harmless.’”

“So Fanshawe marooned himself up there in his ivory tower with Dickie and Abel for company? A pair of hardened veterans, one of them a hired killer. You’re in your right mind, Redfyre—would you have done that?”

“Lord, no! Well, not unless I was the one who’d hired the killer in the first place, sir. And I wanted to be quite sure I was getting my money’s worth. Unless I’d lured my victim or victims up, then arranged for the fox to be let loose in the hen coop.” He grimaced.

“And at the end of the day, who’ve we got left standing? A cast of dodgy characters. Out of the trio in the room of doom: Fanshawe’s dead, Abel Hardy’s dead, Dickie Dunne’s done a runner. I think my arithmetic can handle those numbers. Our course is clear, wouldn’t you say, Inspector? Get that bloody Dickie Dunne here as fast as you can. Countrywide appeal. Can you get an artist’s sketch done? We have no photographs . . .”

Redfyre made a note.

“But I’ll tell you, Redfyre, there’s another villain left standing who by rights shouldn’t be! The man who’s behind all this bother. His eye strayed to the coffin box back on its shelf. “I’m going to have a rubber stamp made and take out all those case files and stamp them ‘solved,’ and I’ll write the name of the bugger responsible on each of them.”

Redfyre got to his feet, retrieved the coffin box and placed it on the worktable once more. “I’ll leave that there until the day we can screw the lid down and bury it,” he said.