“I remember very well that there was nothing on it but a vase of flowers.”

“Nothing? You are positive?”

“Quite. I remember the look of the table very clearly. It reflected the light from the window. Some one must have given the vase a knock because there was some water lying on the table. It’s rather a favourite of my father’s and I remember thinking that the water ought to be mopped up. I gave it a wipe with my handkerchief, but it wasn’t very successful. I didn’t do anything more about it. I was afraid that Aunt V. might come out of cover and I’d had a bellyful of Aunt V. I went into the drawing-room. But there was nothing on the table.”

“Would you swear to that? I mean, take a legal oath?”

“Yes,” said Henry, “I would.”

“What did you talk about when you went into the drawing-room?”

For the first time during the interview Henry seemed to be disconcerted. His eyes went blank. He repeated: “Talk about?” on a note that held an overtone of helplessness.

“Yes. What did you say to your father and your brothers or they to you?”

“I don’t remember. I—oh, yes, I asked if the Gabriels had gone.”

“Anything else?”

“No. I don’t think anybody said anything.”

“And yet,” said Alleyn, “you must have all been feeling most elated.”

“We—yes. Yes, of course, we were.”

“Everything all right again. Lord Wutherwood had promised to see you out of the wood. Crisis averted.”

“Yes. Oh, rather. It was wonderful,” said Henry.

“And yet you all sat there saying nothing except to ask if the benefactor was out of the way. Your younger sister tells me that she and Lady Friede, who went into Flat 26 at this stage of the proceedings, also had nothing to say. A curious reaction.”

“Perhaps our hearts,” said Henry, recovering his poise, “were too full for words.”

“Perhaps they were,” said Alleyn. “I think that’s all. Thank you so much.”

Looking rather startled, Henry got up and moved to the door. Here he paused and after a moment’s hesitation returned to Alleyn.

“We didn’t do it, sir,” he said. “Honestly. None of us. We are not at all a homicidal family.”

“I’m glad of that,” said Alleyn tranquilly.

Henry stared at him and then shrugged his shoulders. “Not an impressive effort on my part, I see,” he said.

“Have you been honest with us?”

Henry didn’t answer. His face was quite colourless. “Well, good night,” he said and, on some obscure impulse, held out his hand.

Fox had not returned. Alleyn looked at his watch. Almost midnight. They’d done not so badly in four hours. He added another column to a tabulated record of everybody’s movements from the time of Lord Wutherwood’s first yell up to the return of the lift. P.C. Gibson, at the door, coughed.

“All right,” said Alleyn without looking up. “We’ll get going again in a moment. Been following the statements?”