‘Good morning,’ Alleyn said. ‘I’m sorry to reappear so soon and to make a further nuisance of myself. I won’t keep you long.’

‘That’s all right,’ Mark said pleasantly. ‘Who do you want to see?’

‘Why, in point of fact, all of you, if I may. I’m lucky to find you in a group like this.’

Mark had fallen into step with him and together they approached the group.

‘Well, Rory,’ Lady Lacklander shouted as soon as he was within range, ‘you don’t give us much peace, do you? What do you want this time? The clothes off our backs?’

‘Yes,’ Alleyn said, ‘I’m afraid I do. More or less.’

‘And what may that mean? More or less?’

‘The clothes off your yesterday-evening backs, if you please.’

‘Is this what my sporadic reading has led me to understand as ‘a matter of routine’?’

‘In a way,’ Alleyn said coolly, ‘yes. Yes, it is. Routine.’

‘And who,’ Kitty Cartarette asked in a care-worn voice of nobody in particular, ‘said that a policeman’s lot is not a happy one?’

This remark was followed by a curious little gap. It was as if her audience had awarded Kitty a point for attempting, under the circumstances, her small joke but at the same time were unable to accept her air of uncertain intimacy which apparently even George found embarrassing. He laughed uncomfortably. Lady Lacklander raised her eyebrows, and Mark scowled at his boots.

‘Do you mean,’ Lady Lacklander said, ‘the clothes that we were all wearing when Maurice Cartarette was murdered?’

‘I do, yes.’

‘Well,’ she said, ‘you’re welcome to mine. What was I wearing yesterday, George?’

‘Really, Mama, I’m afraid I don’t …’

‘Nor do I. Mark?’

Mark grinned at her. ‘A green tent, I fancy, Gar, darling; a solar topee and a pair of Grandfather’s boots.’

‘You’re perfectly right. My green Harris, it was. I’ll tell my maid, Roderick, and you shall have them.’

‘Thank you.’ Alleyn looked at George. ‘Your clothes and boots, please?’

‘Ah, spiked shoes and stockings and plus-fours,’ George said loudly. ‘Very old-fogeyish. Ha-ha.’

‘I think they’re jolly good,’ Kitty said wearily. ‘On the right man.’ George’s hand went to his moustache, but he didn’t look at Kitty. He seemed to be exquisitely uncomfortable. ‘I,’ Kitty added, ‘wore a check skirt and a twin set. Madly county, you know,’ she added, desperately attempting another joke, ‘on account we played golf.’ She sounded near to tears.

‘And your shoes?’ Alleyn asked.

Kitty stuck out her feet. Her legs, Alleyn noted, were good. Her feet, which were tiny, were shod in lizard skin shoes with immensely high heels. ‘Not so county,’ Kitty said, with the ghost of a grin; ‘but the best I had.’

George, apparently in an agony of embarrassment, glanced at the shoes, at his mother and at the distant prospect of the Home Spinney.