He got up and went to the mantelpiece, pulling a coloured postcard from behind one of the porcelain lions he kept standing gardant there over his mail. “Everyone’s flighting home, it seems. I received this card yesterday from Rosamund Wells. She’s in Florence. She tells me she’s returning to Jude’s after all with her father, who’s finally decided, and with much heel-dragging, to take on a further year as master.” He gave his aunt a sharp look. “Though I don’t imagine this is news to you?”

“No, I had a card, too.” Hetty smiled innocently.

“I work things out because that’s what they pay me to do, Aunt, and I calculate that you knew about Cornelius Wells’s decision to return before he even made it himself. In fact, it has occurred to me that his appointment in the first place and his task of cleansing the Augean stables that Jude’s has become,” he said evenly, holding her enquiring gaze, “was set in motion by you. Perhaps it was Uncle Gerald who was made the messenger? The one who sounded the alarm? He has entrée to the Army and Navy Club and other suchlike establishments, after all. The influential men in the London world—the Ks, the Ms, the Cs . . .”

“Oh, darling! The whole alphabet soup were at school with him,” said Hetty comfortably.

Redfyre sensed that was as far as she would go for the moment in the way of an explanation for her involvement in the Jude’s debacle. He would have to reconstruct the rest for himself. He was sure that Gerald had been steered by Hetty to exactly the right club-land after-dinner brandy drinker with his tale of woe. A tale triggered by the death of the tango dancer, perhaps? Information derived from Hetty’s swarm of busy worker bees? It had even occurred to his suspicious mind that the glamorous Madame Dorine and her troupe of light-footed ladies could well be a fruitful source of information. Why not? After his recent discovery that Hetty’s organisation extended to the brothels of the town, nothing could surprise him. Wherever women and men exchanged conversation or money, it seemed that Hetty had acquired recruits to her cause.

Waiting nervously in the King’s Parade for the dance to begin, he hadn’t failed to notice the mix of male characters performing for the crowd back in May. Along with the student contingent, some socially prominent men about town had taken part in the demonstration. Sportsmen all—and bless ’em! Not too proud to put on a pair of dance shoes and a show for the public. He’d recognised men who were in their professional lives politicians, economists, scientists. Even a humble policeman and the policeman’s dentist had stepped up and put their reputation and dignity on the line.

“And with your new informant—little Pansy-Face—you were on the inside of the bend,” he persisted.