MacFarlane was already tearing open the envelope that had been put in his in-tray.

A stubby finger ran down the neatly typed list, stopped, stabbed at a name and he chortled. “Gotcha! Here’s a match! Melton Hall!”

He handed the list to Redfyre, who took up the tale. “This is where he spends his vacations. The home address he’s given is actually the home of his sister, the lady of the manor. Oliver Fanshawe! He’s the uncle of the girl Chiqui was involved with. That’s the military thread connecting him with the killings. Well, not so much a thread . . . more like the first small stone that starts an avalanche. The retired general—old Brancaster—learned of Abel’s special services by the military grapevine, confided between armchairs in one of their clubs when the port was flowing. ‘I say, old chap, if you have a problem that needs to be solved irrevocably and discreetly, I can give you a number to ring . . .’ Uncle Oliver listens sympathetically to his sister’s story of attempted blackmail—perhaps he is genuinely fond of the niece he tries to help—and is persuaded by his brother-in-law to arrange for Chiqui’s last tango to happen in Cambridge, giving his family a safe alibi of fifty miles or so. It must have added another stimulating dimension to Fanshawe’s intellectual torment soirées to know that their victim was leaving the party, going on somewhere to keep a further date with death.”

“Heathens! They probably noted down the poor fool’s last words. Wouldn’t surprise me. At least he had a good meal . . . beef Wellington, wasn’t it? Apart from the pudding, according to the doc. He must have flounced out before the pudding.”

“And encountered his nemesis lying in wait below in the street, delivered into his hands, drunk, incapable and quarrelsome, by a couple of the Amici,” Redfyre said. “Information from Dr. Wells. He says two men helped him down the stairs and off the premises. Hardy! An easy job for a man of his experience. Just lend a steadying arm to a drunk and offer to escort him home . . . you’re going his way, after all.”

“Unless,” MacFarlane interrupted, “Hardy was already there? A guest himself at the dinner table? No need to be kept waiting down below, stropping his knife on the sole of his shoe or picking his nose. And it would give him all the time he needed to size up the victim. To assess his strength and locate his weapon, if any.”