Lady Lacklander said automatically: ‘Don’t be an ass, George.’

‘I’ll tell you,’ Alleyn said, ‘exactly what the pathologist has found. He has found traces of scales where we expected to find them: on the Colonel’s hands and the edge of one cuff, on Mr Phinn’s coat and knickerbockers and, as she warned us, on Mrs Cartarette’s skirt. The first of these traces belongs to Group B and the other two to Group A. Yes?’ Alleyn said, looking at Mark who had begun to speak and

then stopped short.

‘Nothing,’ Mark said. ‘I – no, go on.’

‘I’ve almost finished. I’ve said that we think the initial blow was made by a golf club probably a driver. I may as well tell you at once that so far none of the clubs has revealed any trace of blood. On the other hand, they have all been extremely well cleaned.’

George said: ‘Naturally. My chap does mine.’

‘When it comes to shoes, however,’ Alleyn went on, ‘it’s a different story. They, too, have been well cleaned. But in respect of the right foot of a pair of golfing shoes there is something quite definite. The pathologist is satisfied that the scar left on the Colonel’s trout was undoubtedly made by the spiked heel of this shoe.’

‘It’s a bloody lie!’ George Lacklander bawled out. ‘Who are you accusing? Whose shoe?’

‘It’s a hand-made job. Size four. Made, I should think, as long as ten years ago. From a very old, entirely admirable and hideously expensive bootmaker in the Burlington Arcade. It’s your shoe, Lady Lacklander.’

Her face was too fat to be expressive. She seemed merely to stare at Alleyn in a meditative fashion, but she had gone very pale. At last she said without moving: ‘George, it’s time to tell the truth.’

‘That,’ Alleyn said, ‘is the conclusion I hoped you would come to.’

III

‘What are you suggesting?’ Nurse Kettle repeated and then, seeing the look in Kitty’s face, she shouted: ‘No! Don’t tell me!’

But Kitty had begun to tell her. ‘It’s each for himself in their world,’ she said, ‘just the same as in anybody else’s. If George Lacklander dreams he can make a monkey out of me he’s going to wake up in a place where he won’t have any more funny ideas. What about the old family name then! Look! Do you know what he gets me to do? Break open Maurice’s desk because there’s something Maurie was going to make public about old Lacklander and George wants to get in first. And when it isn’t there he asks me to find out if it was on the body. Me! And when I won’t take that one on, what does he say?’

‘I don’t know. Don’t tell me!’