“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Isn’t it frightful? I’m over the way so if you want anything you’ve only to cross the passage. There’s nobody else on this side. Aunt V. is across the landing in a terrible suite. Good night, Robin.”

“Good night, Henry.”

“You interrupted me,” said Henry. “I was going to add, ‘my darling.’ ”

He winked solemnly and went out.

A wind got up during the small hours. It hunted desolately about London, its course deflected by sleeping buildings. It moaned about Pleasaunce Court Mansions, shaking the skylight of the lift well. The policeman on duty there stared upwards and wished the black, rattling panes would turn grey for the dawn. It blew the curtains of Patch’s windows across her face, giving her another nightmare and causing her to make horrid noises in her throat. The rest of the family, hearing Patch, turned fretfully in their beds and listened for the thud of Nanny’s feet as she stumped down the passage. Gathering strength in the open places of Hyde Park, the wind howled across Park Lane and whistled up Brummell Street so that the old chimney-cowls in No. 24 swung round with a groan and Roberta heard a voice in the chimney moaning “Rune—Rune—Rune.” Out at Hammersmith the wind ruffled the black waters of the Thames and the blameless dreams of Lady Katherine Lobe. Indeed the only actor in the Pleasaunce Court case who was not disturbed by that night wind was the late Lord Wutherwood who lay in a morgue awaiting his tryst with Dr. Curtis.

“Wind getting up,” said Fox in the Chief Inspector’s room at Scotland Yard. “Shouldn’t be surprised if we had rain before dawn.” He pulled a completed sheet and two carbons from his typewriter, added them tidily to the stacked papers on his desk, and took out his pipe.

“What’s the time?” asked Alleyn.

“Five-and-thirty past two, sir.”

“We’ve about finished, haven’t we, Fox?”

“I think so, sir. I’ve just got out the typescript of your report.”

Alleyn crumpled a sheet of paper and threw it at Nigel Bathgate, who was asleep in an office chair. “Wake up, Bathgate. The end’s in view.”

“What? Hullo, are we going home? Is that the report? May I see it?” asked Nigel.

“If you like. Give him a carbon, Fox. We’ll all have a brood over the beastly thing.” And for twenty minutes they read and smoked in a silence broken by the rustle of papers and occasional gusts that shook the window frames.

“That covers it, I think,” said Alleyn at last. He looked at Nigel, who with the nervous, half-irritated concentration of a press-man was still reading the report.

“Yes,” said Fox heavily, “as far as the family goes it’s all pretty plain sailing. Their truthful statements seem to hang together and so, if you can put it that way, do their untruthful statements.”

Nigel looked up. “Are you so positive,” he said, “that some of their statements are not true?”