Lacklander shook his head and screwed up his eyes. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he gasped. ‘Frightful of me, I know, but really!’ Alleyn saw that through his almost sealed eyelids he was peeping out, wary and agitated. ‘You don’t mean to say you think that I –?’ He waved away his uncompleted sentence with a flap of his pink freckled hand.

‘– that you murdered Colonel Cartarette, were you going to say?’

‘Such a notion! I mean, how? When? With what?’

Alleyn, watching his antics, found them insupportable.

‘I know I shouldn’t laugh,’ Lacklander gabbled. ‘But it’s so fantastic. How? When? With what?’ And through Alleyn’s mind dodged a disjointed jingle. ‘Quomodo? Quando? Quibus auxiliis?’

‘He was killed,’ Alleyn said, ‘by a blow and a stab. The injuries were inflicted at about five past eight last evening. The murderer stood in the old punt. As for “with what” …’

He forced himself to look at George Lacklander whose face, like a bad mask, was still crumpled in a false declaration of mirth.

‘The puncture,’ Alleyn said, ‘was made by your mothers shooting-stick and the initial blow …’ He saw the pink hands flex and stretch, flex and stretch. ‘By a golf club. Probably a driver.’

At that moment the desk telephone rang. It was Dr Curtis for Alleyn.

He was still talking when the door opened and Lady Lacklander came in followed by Mark. They lined themselves up by George and all three watched Alleyn.

Curtis said: ‘Can I talk?’

‘Ah, yes,’ Alleyn said airily. ‘That’s all right. I’m afraid I can’t do anything to help you, but you can go ahead quietly on your own.’

‘I suppose,’ Dr Curtis’s voice said very softly, ‘you’re in a nest of Lacklanders?’

‘Yes, indeed.’

‘All right. I’ve rung up to tell you about the scales. Willy can’t find both types on any of the clothes or gear.’

‘No?’

‘No. Only on the rag – the paint rag.’

‘Both types on that?’

‘Yes. And on the punt seat.’

‘Yes?’

‘Yes. Shall I go on?’

‘Do.’

Dr Curtis went on. Alleyn and the Lacklanders watched each other.

11. Between Hammer and Nunspardon

CHAPTER 11

Between Hammer and Nunspardon