Fox said: ‘You can take this young lady along to the chief in three minutes, Lamprey. Now, ladies and gentlemen, if you’d care to go to your rooms.’

He shepherded Helena and the two men through the door and looked back at Poole. ‘What about you, sir?’

Poole with his eyes on Martyn, said: ‘Yes, I’m coming.’ Fox waited stolidly at the door for him and after a moment’s hesitation Poole followed the others. Fox went with them.

Mike Lamprey said: ‘We’ll let them get settled, Miss Tarne, and then I’ll take you along to Mr Alleyn. You must be getting very bored with all this hanging about.’

Martyn, whose emotional processes were in a state of chaos, replied with a vague smile. She wondered disjointedly if constables of PC Lamprey’s class were a commonplace in the English force. He glanced good-humouredly at Gay and the three dozing men and evidently felt obliged to make further conversation.

‘I heard someone say,’ he began, ‘that you are a New Zealander. I was out there as a small boy.’

‘Were you, really?’ Martyn said and wondered confusedly if he could have been the son of a former governor-general.

‘We had a place out there on a mountain. Mount Silver it was. Would that be anywhere near your part of the world?’

Something clicked in Martyn’s memory. ‘Oh, yes!’ she said. ‘I’ve heard about the Lampreys of Mount Silver, I’m sure and—’ Her recollections clarified a little. ‘Yes, indeed,’ she added lamely.

‘No doubt,’ said Mike with a cheerful laugh, ‘a legend of lunacy has survived us. We came home when I was about eight and soon afterwards my uncle happened to get murdered in our flat and Mr Alleyn handled the case. I thought at the time I’d like to go into the Force and the idea sort of persisted. And there you are, you know. Potted autobiography. Shall we go along and see if he’s free?’

He escorted her down the passage to the greenroom door past Sergeant Gibson who seemed to be on guard there. Mike chatted freely as they went, rather as if he was taking her into supper after a successful dance. The star-bemused Martyn found herself brightly chatting back at him.

This social atmosphere was not entirely dispelled, she felt, by Alleyn himself, who received her rather as a distinguished surgeon might greet a patient.

‘Come in, Miss Tarne,’ he said cordially. ‘I hear you’ve thought of something to tell us about this wretched business. Do sit down.’

She sat in her old chair, facing the gas-fire and with her back to the table. Only when she looked up involuntarily at the sketch of Adam Poole did she realize that young Lamprey had settled himself at the table and taken out a note-book. She could see his image reflected in the glass.