“Silly ass. He’s an intelligent surgeon, but in other matters he’s got as much savoir-faire as a child. He’d swear his soul away I didn’t do it and then blurt out something like that. What I want to make clear to you is this. Jane Harden’s distress in the theatre was on my account. She thinks I murdered O’Callaghan. I know she does, because she won’t ask me. Don’t, for God’s sake, put any other interpretation on it. She’s got a preposterous idea that she’s ruined my life. Her nerves are all to blazes. She’s anæmic and she’s hysterical. If you arrest me, she may come forward with some damn’ statement calculated to drag a red herring across my trail. She’s an idealist. It’s a type I don’t pretend to understand. She did nothing to the syringe containing the serum. When Thoms cursed her for delaying, I turned and looked at her. She simply stood there dazed and half fainting. She’s as innocent as—I was going to say as I am, but that may not carry much weight. She’s completely innocent.”

He stopped abruptly. To Alleyn it had seemed a most remarkable little scene. The change in Phillips’s manner alone was extraordinary. The smooth, guarded courtesy which had characterised it during their former interview had vanished completely. He had spoken rapidly, as if urged by some appalling necessity. He now sat glaring at Alleyn with a hint of resigned ferociousness.

“Is that all you came to tell me, Sir John?” asked Alleyn in his most non-committal voice.

“All? What do you mean?”

“Well, you see, you prepared me for a bombshell. I wondered what on earth was coming. You talked of making a clean breast of it, but, forgive me, you’ve told me little that we did not already know.”

Phillips took his time over answering this. At last he said:

“I suppose that’s true. Look here, Alleyn. Can you give me your assurance that you entertain no suspicions as regards Jane Harden?”

“I’m afraid I can’t. I shall consider everything you have told me very carefully, but I cannot, at this stage, make any definite announcement of that sort. Miss Harden is in a very equivocal position. I hope she may be cleared, but I cannot put her aside simply because, to put it baldly, you tell me she’s innocent.”

Phillips was silent. After a moment he clasped his well-shaped, well-kept hands together, and looking at them attentively, began to speak again.

“There’s something more. Has Thoms told you that I opened a new tube of tablets for the hyoscine injection?”

Alleyn did not move, but he seemed to come to attention.

“Oh yes,” he said quietly.

“He has! Lord, what an ingenuous little creature it is! Did you attach any significance to this second tube?”

“I remembered it.”