Mr Phinn made a strange little gesture with his thumb and forefinger as if he actually adjusted his glasses. Thus, momentarily, he hid the red groove across the top of his nose and the flush that had begun to spread across his face. ‘Not all the time,’ he said. ‘Only for reading.’

Lady Lacklander suddenly clapped the palms of her hands down on the arms of her chair. ‘So there we are,’ she said. ‘And having said my say, George, I should like you, if you please, to take me home.’

She put out her right arm and as George was a little slow in coming, Alleyn took her hand, braced himself and hauled.

‘Up she rises,’ Lady Lacklander quoted self-derisively and up she rose. She stared for a moment at Mr Phinn, who gaped back at her and mouthed something indistinguishable. She looked straight into Alleyn’s eyes ‘Do you, after all,’ she said, ‘propose to let me go home?’

Alleyn raised an eyebrow. ‘I shall feel a good deal safer,’ he said, ‘with you there than here, Lady Lacklander.’

‘Take me to my car. I have to shuffle a bit because of my damn’ toe. It’s no better, Kettle. George, you may join me in five minutes. I want to have a word with Roderick Alleyn.’

She said goodbye to Rose, holding her for a moment in her arms. Rose clung to her and gave a shuddering sob. Lady Lacklander said: ‘My poor child, my poor little Rose; you must come to us as soon as possible. Get Mark to give you something to make you sleep.’

Kitty had risen. ‘It was awfully kind of you to come,’ she said, and held out her hand. Lady Lacklander took it and after a scarcely perceptible pause let it be known that Kitty was expected to kiss her. This Kitty did with caution.

‘Come and see me tomorrow, Kettle,’ said Lady Lacklander, ‘unless they lock you up.’

‘Let ‘em try,’ said Nurse Kettle, who had been entirely silent ever since Mr Phinn’s arrival. Lady Lacklander gave a short laugh. She paid no attention to Mr Phinn but nodded to Alleyn. He hastened to open the door and followed her through a large and charmingly shaped hall to the main entrance. Outside this a vast elderly car waited.

‘I’ll sit in the back,’ she said. ‘George will drive. I find him an irritating companion in time of trouble.’

Alleyn opened the door and switched on a light in the car.

‘Now, tell me,’ she said, after she had heaved herself in, ‘tell me, not as a policeman to an octogenarian dowager but as a man of discretion to one of your mother’s oldest friends, what did you think of Occy Phinn’s behaviour just now?’

Alleyn said: ‘Octogenarian dowagers even if they are my mother’s oldest friend shouldn’t lure me out of doors at night and make improper suggestions.’