‘My dear old Fox, there’s no end to the punishment some women will take.’

‘Of course,’ Fox said dismally, ‘in a manner of speaking, she’s trained for it. There is that.’

‘I rather think, you know, that she’s one of the sort that has got to have somebody to cosset.’

‘I dare say. Whereas barring the odd bilious turn I’m never out of sorts. What do we do now, Mr Alleyn?’ Fox continued, dismissing the more intimate theme with an air of finality.

‘We can’t do anything really conclusive until we get a lead from Curtis. But we interview George Lacklander all the same, Brer Fox, and I hope, lay the ghost of young Ludovic Phinn. It’s half-past one. We may as well let them have their luncheon. Let’s see what they can do for us at the Boy and Donkey.’

They ate their cold meat, potato and beetroot with the concentration of men whose meals do not occur as a matter of course, but are consumed precariously when chances present themselves. Before they had finished Dr Curtis rang up to give an interim report. He now plumped unreservedly for a blow on the temple with a blunt instrument while Colonel Cartarette squatted over his catch. Subsequent injuries had been inflicted with a pointed instrument after he lay on his side, unconscious or possibly already lifeless. The second injury had all but obliterated the first. He was unable with any certainty to name the first instrument, but the second was undoubtedly the shooting-stick. Sir William Roskill had found traces of recently shed blood under the collar of the disc. He was now checking for the blood group.

‘I see,’ Alleyn said. ‘And the shooting-stick was used –?’

‘My dear chap, in the normal way, one must suppose.’

‘Yes, one must, mustn’t one? Deliberately pushed home and sat on. Horrid-awful behaviour.’

‘Brutal,’ Dr Curtis said dispassionately.

‘All the brutality in the world. Has Willy tackled the fish scales?’

‘Give him time. But, yes, he’s begun. No report yet?’

‘We’re going to Nunspardon. Telephone me if there’s anything, Curtis, will you? You or Willy?’

‘OK.’

Alleyn turned away from the telephone to discover Sergeant Bailey waiting for him with the air of morose detachment that meant he had something of interest to impart. He had, in fact, come from a further detailed overhaul of Colonel Cartarette’s study. The bottom drawer on the left of the desk carried an identifiable fingerprint of Sir George Lacklander’s.

‘I checked it with his grog glass,’ Bailey said, looking at his boots. ‘The drawer seems to have been wiped over but a dab on the underside must have been missed or something. It’s his all right.’

‘Very useful,’ Alleyn said.

Fox wore that expression of bland inscrutability that always seemed to grow upon him as a case approached its close. He would listen attentively to witnesses, suspects, colleagues or his chief and would presently glance up and move the focus of his gaze to some distant object of complete unimportance. This mannerism had the same effect as a change of conversation. It was as if Mr Fox had become rather pleasurably abstracted. To his associates it was a sign of a peculiar wiliness.