“No rigor yet?”

“Just beginning. Why?”

“We may have to perform an unpleasant experiment. Is the nurse still here?”

“Yes,” said Dr. Kantripp.

“When Bailey and Thompson have finished, get her to tidy him up. He’s a nightmare as he is. Come on, Fox.”

Fox had caused the mechanism of the lift to be switched off, had sealed the doors and had posted a uniformed constable on the landing. The lift was dark inside and, waiting there at the Lampreys’ landing, it wore an air of expectancy.

“Window at the top of the door,” said Alleyn.

“That’s right, sir.”

“Didn’t you say that he sat in here, yelling for his wife? With the doors shut?”

“So the butler said.”

“He might have been whisked down below.”

“Perhaps he kept his thumb on the stop button, Mr. Alleyn.”

“Perhaps he did.” Alleyn switched on the light. “Now, where was he?”

“From all accounts he was sitting in the right-hand corner with his head leaning against that steel grid affair and his bowler hat tilted over his face. Of course the lift’s been used since then. The doctor, for one, came up in it. As soon as our chaps came in they attended to that. Still, it’s a pity.”

“It is.” Alleyn peered at the steel fretwork of the wall. “There’s the smear you talked about on that bulge or knob or what-you-will.”

“Very fancy design, isn’t it, sir?”

“Very, Br’er Fox. Grapes, you see, mixed up with decorative lumps. Modern applied art. How tall was he?”

“Six foot and a half-inch,” said Fox immediately.

“Good. You’re six foot, aren’t you? Just sit at the other end, Foxkin. Yes. Yes, I fancy that if you sat there and I caught you a snorter on the right side of your head your left temple would miss that corresponding knob by half an inch or so. However, that’s altogether too vague. It looks as if we’ll have to get him in here to try. I see these knobs have got slight depressions in the surface. Look at our particular one. Somebody, as you capably observed, has wiped it. And the seat, as well. Not very proficiently. Bailey will have to deal with this. Hullo!”

Alleyn stooped and flashed his torch under the seat. “I suppose you’ve already spotted those, you old devil,” he observed.

“Yes, sir. I thought I’d leave them for you.”

“What delicacy! What tact!” Alleyn reached under the seat and drew out a pair of heavy driving gloves with long gauntlets. He and Fox squatted on the floor and examined them.

“Bloody,” said Fox.

“Blood, or something that looks like it. Between the middle and the third fingers of the left hand, and on the inner surface of those fingers. And a little on the palm. Can you see any on the right-hand glove? Yes. Again, a little on the palm. Bless my soul, Fox, we must take care of these. Give them to Bailey, like a good chap, and then tell me the whole story as far as you’ve got.”