“I have done nothing to hurt him,” she said loudly.

“No. But have you ever written to him? That was my question, you know.”

She took a long time to answer this. At last she murmured: “Oh, yes.”

“How often?”

“I don’t know—”

“Recently?”

“Fairly recently.”

“Threatening letters?”

She moved her head from side to side as though the increasing dusk held a menace.

“No,” said Jane.

He saw now that she looked at him with terror in her eyes. It was a glance to which he had become accustomed, but, since in his way he was a sensitive man, never quite reconciled.

“I think it would be better,” he pronounced slowly, “if you told me the whole story. There is no need, is there, for me to tell you that you are one of the people whom I must take into consideration? Your presence in the operating theatre brings you into the picture. Naturally I want an explanation.”

“I should have thought my—distress—would have given you that,” she whispered, and in that half-light he saw her pallor change to a painful red. “You see, I loved him,” added Jane.

“I think I understand that part of it,” he said abruptly. “I am extremely sorry that these beastly circumstances oblige me to pry into such very painful matters. Try to think of me as a sort of automaton, unpleasant but quite impersonal. Can you do that, do you think?”

“I suppose I must try.”

“Thank you. First of all—was there anything beyond ordinary friendship between you and O’Callaghan?”

She made a slight movement.

“Not—” She paused and then said: “Not really.”

“Were you going to say ‘Not now’? I think there had been. You say you wrote to him. Perhaps your letters terminated a phase of your friendship?”

She seemed to consider this and then answered uneasily: “The second did.”

He thought: “Two letters. I wonder what happened to the other?”

Aloud, he said: “Now, as I understand it, you had known Sir Derek for some time—an old family friendship. Recently this friendship changed to a more intimate association. When was this?”

“Last June—three months ago.”

“And it went on—for how long?”

Her hands moved to her face. As if ashamed of this pitiful gesture she snatched them away, and raising her voice, said clearly: “Three days.”

“I see,” said Alleyn gently. “Was that the last time you saw him?”

“Yes—until the operation.”

“Had there been any quarrel?”

“No.”

“None?”

“No.” She tilted her head back and began to speak rapidly.

“It was a mutual agreement. People make such a fuss about sex. It’s only a normal physical experience, like hunger or thirst. The sensible thing is to satisfy it in a perfectly reasonable and natural way. That’s what we did. There was no need to meet again. We had our experience.”

“My poor child!” Alleyn ejaculated.

“What do you mean!”