‘You didn’t have it in one of those waterproof cover things?’

‘What? Oh, yes, actually, I did.’

‘May I have that too, please?’

Mark made a second trip to get it and was away rather longer. ‘I wasn’t sure which was the one,’ he said, ‘but I think this is right.’

Alleyn put it with the bag and racket in the car.

Mark had caught Rose’s hand in his. She hung back a little.

‘Mr Alleyn,’ Mark said, ‘Rose and I are in the hell of a spot over this. Aren’t we, darling? We’re engaged, by the way.’

‘You amaze me,’ Alleyn said.

‘Well, we are. And, of course, wherever it’s humanly possible, I’m going to see that Rose is not harried and fussed. She’s had a very severe shock and –’

‘No, don’t,’ Rose said. ‘Please, Mark, don’t.’

Mark gazed at her, seemed to lose the thread of his subject, and then collected himself.

‘It’s just this,’ he said. ‘I feel strongly that as far as you and our two families are concerned everything ought to be perfectly straightforward. We’re under promise not to mention this and that and so we can’t; but we are both very worried about the way things are going. I mean in respect of Octavius Phinn. You see, sir, we happen to know that poor old Occy Phinn had every possible reason not to commit this crime. Every possible reason. And if,’ Mark said, ‘you’ve guessed, as I rather think you may have, what I’m driving at, I can’t help it.’

‘And you agree with all this, Miss Cartarette?’ Alleyn asked.

Rose held herself a little aloof now. Tear-stained and obviously exhausted, she seemed to pull herself together and shape her answer with care and difficulty.

‘Mr Alleyn, my father would have been appalled if he could have known that, because he and Octavius had a row over the trout, poor Occy might be thought to – to have a motive. They’d had rows over trout for years. It was a kind of joke – nothing. And – whatever else they had to say to each other, and as you know there was something else, it would have made Octavius much more friendly. I promise you. You see, I know my father had gone to see Octavius.’

Alleyn said quickly: ‘You mean he went to his house? Yesterday afternoon?’

‘Yes. I was with him before he went and he said he was going there.’

‘Did he say why? I think you spoke of some publishing business.’

‘Yes. He – he – had something he wanted to show Occy.’

‘What was that, can you tell us?’