Kerridge was a grey man: grey hair, grey bushy eyebrows, grey face, and all set off with a grey suit. He had a soft spot for Lady Rose, probably because he sensed a misfit like himself. Inside Kerridge burned a dreamer who would like to see the aristocracy hanging from the lamp posts. But he kept his views to himself. He had a wife and children to look after.

‘Now, my lady,’ he began, ‘tell me exactly what happened and why you were there.’

‘I saw Harry – Captain Cathcart – at the opera with Miss Duval. He had told me he was investigating something for her, but I felt he was disgracing me by association. He had no right to appear to be escorting her. I went to have it out with her. The door was open. When I walked in, I saw a foot protruding from behind the sofa. I walked round. She was dead. Shot. I screamed. There was a revolver lying next to her. I was dazed with shock. I picked it up and then the cleaning woman rushed in and began crying murder.’

There came the sounds of a loud altercation outside and Kerridge damned the advent of the motor car, which got people from point A to point B so quickly.

A police officer put his head around the door. ‘Sir, Lord Hadshire is here –’ he had begun when he was rudely thrust aside. The earl bustled in, followed by his wife, Lady Polly, Captain Harry and Sir Crispin Briggs, Q.C.

‘Don’t say another word,’ the earl barked at his daughter.

‘Has she been charged?’ asked Briggs.

‘Not yet,’ said Kerridge heavily. ‘I had just begun to interrogate her.’

‘Then if you wish to ask her any more questions, you can do it at our house with Sir Harry Briggs present.’

Kerridge sighed. ‘Then I shall visit you this afternoon. I have witnesses to interview. Captain Cathcart. A word with you.’

He waited until Rose was bundled out by her parents and barrister.

Harry sat down and looked at Kerridge bleakly. ‘What on earth was Rose up to?’

‘It seems the final straw came when you squired Miss Duval to the opera. Lady Rose went to confront Miss Duval. She says she found her dead and, in a moment of shock, picked up the revolver. She was found like that by the cleaning woman and several other witnesses. It looks bad.’

‘Fingerprints?’

‘Sent over to the Bureau already. So what was Miss Duval’s business with you?’

‘Miss Duval had received various threatening letters. She wanted me to find out who had written them and to protect her until such time as I found out the culprit.’

‘Why did she not go to the police?’

‘She begged me not to. She had a fear of the police. Miss Duval had been in some trouble in Paris. A certain aristocratic lady claimed that Miss Duval had stolen a pearl necklace. Miss Duval said that the necklace had been given to her by the lady’s husband. It was a great scandal and she said she received rough treatment from the police and the newspapers.’