Tinkerton said huffily that she followed Giggle downstairs. She remembered hearing Lord Wutherwood yell a second time. When he did that she was already some way downstairs. She joined Giggle in the car and remained there with him until the young lady came to fetch them. This came out inch by reluctant inch.

Alleyn made very careful notes, taking her over the stages of her movements several times. She seemed to be perfectly sure of her own accuracy and repeated monotonously that she had seen nobody but Giggle and Michael, as she went along the passage, through the hall, across the landing and downstairs.

“Please think very carefully,” Alleyn repeated. “You saw nobody else? You are absolutely positive?”

“Yes, sir.”

“All right,” said Alleyn, cheerfully. “And now, what did you talk about all the afternoon?” At this sudden change of tone and of tactics, Tinkerton’s air of disapproval deepened. “I really couldn’t say, sir,” she said thinly.

“You mean you don’t remember—”

“I don’t recollect.”

“But you must remember something, Tinkerton. You had a long chat with Lady Charles Lamprey’s nurse, didn’t you? It must have been a long chat, you know, because when you came out Giggle and Master Michael were playing trains and they didn’t do that until some time after your arrival. What did you and Nanny (Mrs. Burnaby, isn’t she?) discuss together?”

Tinkerton primmed her lips again and said several things were mentioned.

“Well, let us hear some of them.”

Tinkerton said: “The young ladies and gentlemen came up.”

“Of course,” said Alleyn amiably, “you would discuss the family. Naturally.”

“They came up,” Tinkerton repeated guardedly.

“In what connection?”

“Mrs. Burnaby brought them up,” said Tinkerton, as if Nanny had suffered from a surfeit of Lampreys and had taken an emetic for it. “Miss Friede’s theatricals. I should,” added Tinkerton, “have said ‘Lady Friede.’ Pardon.”

“I suppose you are all very interested in her theatricals?”

A slightly acid tinge crept over Tinkerton’s face as she agreed that they were.

“And in all the family’s doings, I expect. Did Lord and Lady Wutherwood often pay visits to this flat?”

Not very often it seemed. Alleyn began to feel as if Tinkerton was a bad cork and himself an inefficient corkscrew, drawing out unimportant fragments, while large lumps of testimony fell into the wine and were lost.

“So this visit was quite an event,” he suggested. “Have you been in the London house for long?”

“No.”

“For how long?”

“We have not been there.”

“You mean you arrived in London to-day.” She didn’t answer. “Is that what you mean? Where did you come from?”

“From Deepacres.”

“From Deepacres? That’s in Kent, isn’t it? Did you come straight to this flat?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Had his lordship ever done that before, do you know?”

“I don’t recollect.”

“When were you to return to Deepacres?”

“Her ladyship remarked to his lordship, on the way up, that she would like to stay in Town for a few days.”

“What did he say to that?”