‘Very. But I don’t suppose you have much of a fingerprint file on the Island.’

‘Not what you’d call an up-to-date one. Well, the other thing is semen stains. It seems they can get them classified now, like blood.’

‘No,’ said George.

‘So if you could let me have the lady’s sheets, or any garments – ’ ‘I said no.’

‘Perhaps the doctor took some samples – ’

‘Positively bloody NO!’ George bellowed, quite startling us all.

‘Yes, of course, sir. There’s a sort of delicacy – ’

George stood up.

The Centenier shut up.

‘You won’t stay to luncheon?’ asked George in a voice from the nineteenth century. ‘No. Well, I must thank you for all your help. Most kind. You hadn’t a hat? No. A fine day, is it not. Goodbye.’

He closed the front door, quite gently. When he was back in the room he eyed us, defying us to grin. At last, he grinned himself.

‘The phrase you are groping for,’ I said carefully, ‘is “Fuck an old rat”.’

‘Fuck an old rat,’ he said. ‘A good cavalry expression. The cavalry has its rôle, after all, in modern life.’

Sam seemed to awake from a heavy slumber.

‘I could eat an old rat,’ he said.

‘There was half a cold duck in the fridge,’ George said apologetically, ‘but I’m afraid I ate it last night just after you men had left. Sonia is in no shape for cooking and the maid cannot tell an Aga from an autoclave. Let us go to Bonne Nuit Bay and eat lobsters.’

‘But will they let Charlie in?’ asked Sam sweetly. ‘I mean, he does look just a little farouche …’

I gazed at him thoughtfully. His tongue was ever sharp but lately he seemed to have been gargling with acid.

‘I shall go and change,’ I said stiffly. ‘Please order for me. I shall have a medium-sized hen lobster split and broiled with a great deal of butter, three potato croquettes and a salad made with the hearts of two lettuces. I shall dress the salad myself.’

‘Wine?’ said Sam.

‘Thank you, how kind. I shall drink whatever you offer; your judgement in these matters is famous.’

Over lunch we agreed that very little could be done until we had more information. George set up a fighting-fund of £100: ten £5 bribes to be slipped to gardeners and other venal fellows who might lay their ears to the ground, and five £10 rewards for any of them who brought in concrete information. Larger rewards, he shrewdly pointed out, might well provoke imagination rather than hard news.

We parted at three; I, for one, in that state of tentative eupepsia which only a broiled lobster and a bottle of Gewurtztraminer can bestow, augmented by the fact that Sam had, indeed, paid for the wine.