By nine o’clock he had showered and changed and had heated up and eaten the lamb stew. A note found under the casserole dish explained that it had been cooked by Mrs. Warren, a discovery which reinforced Dalgliesh’s view that her husband’s temporary assignment to the Squad was fortunate. He opened a bottle of the red wine and placed it with three glasses on a low table before the fire. With the cheerfully patterned curtains drawn against the night, he found himself, as he sometimes did on a case, comfortably ensconced in a period of solitude. To spend at least some part of the day totally alone was something which from childhood had been as necessary to him as food and light. Now, the brief respite over, he took out his small personal notebook and began his review of the day’s interviews. From the time when he was a detective sergeant, he had put down in an unofficial notebook a few salient words and phrases which could immediately bring to mind a person, an unwise admission, a snatch of dialogue, an exchange of glances. With this aid he had almost complete recall. This private review done, he would phone Kate and ask her and Benton to join him, when the day’s progress would be discussed and he would set out the programme for tomorrow.

The interviews had produced no fundamental changes in the evidence they had already given. Admittedly Kimberley, despite having been assured by Mr. Chandler-Powell that she had acted correctly, was obviously unhappy, seeking to persuade herself that she might after all have been mistaken. Alone in the library with Dalgliesh and Kate, she kept stealing glances at the door as if hoping to see her husband or fearing the arrival of Mr. Chandler-Powell. Dalgliesh and Kate were patient with her. Asked if she had been sure at the time that the voices she had heard were those of Mr. Chandler-Powell and Sister Holland, she had squeezed her face into a parody of agonised thought.

“I did think it was Mr. Chandler-Powell and Sister, but I would, wouldn’t I? I mean, I wouldn’t expect it to be anyone else. It did sound like them, or I wouldn’t have thought that it was them, would I? But I can’t remember what they were saying. I thought they sounded as if they were quarrelling. I opened the sitting-room door just a little, and they weren’t there, so perhaps they were in the bedroom. But, of course, they might have been in the sitting room and I didn’t see them. And I did hear loud voices, but perhaps they were just talking together. It was very late. . . .”