“Because—this is what you will find so strange—because of what he said to me last night when we got back to the hotel. He said: ‘Carolyn, someone has killed Alfred. There’s not a possibility of accident. Someone has altered the weights.’ We were both quiet for a moment and then he said: ‘Yesterday—this morning—if I had known he was going to die I would have thought of you and—what I might gain—and now—I can only think of him.” As soon as he had spoken, it was as though my brain cleared. I cannot describe how it was. I simply knew that he was quite innocent. I was so ashamed that I had ever thought he might be anything else. He stayed a little while, talking quietly about Alfie and our early days together. When he went away he said”—for a moment the deep voice faltered. Then she made an impatient movement with her head. “He said: ‘You know I love you, Carolyn, but I am glad now that we did nothing to hurt him.’”

There was a long pause. Carolyn seemed to be lost in her own thoughts. She had become much more composed, and Alleyn thought that while she was alone she must have deliberately set in order the events that she had made up her mind to relate. He realised that physically, as well as emotionally, she was exhausted.

“Shall we go back?” he asked gently.

“First tell me: Can you—do you understand how certain I am of Hailey’s innocence? Does what I have said count at all?”

“Yes. It has impressed me very deeply. I am quite sure that you have told me what you believe to be the truth.”

“But you—what do you believe?”

“You must remember that I am a policeman. I attach a great deal of importance to what you have told me, but I would like very much to establish an alibi for the period before the supper-party.”

“For Hailey?”

“For Hambledon, certainly.”

He looked at her. “Has she got no thought at all for herself?” he wondered. “Can’t she see? Or is she, after all, very, very clever?”

“Hailey was in his dressing-room,” said Carolyn. “It is next to mine. I heard him send his dresser away. Wait! Wait! Let me think. Last night when that detective asked me questions I could only think about the other time. Wait! When he told Bob—that’s his dresser—that he could go, I said to Minna, my maid, that I could manage without her. She helped me off with my dress and then she went out, and she and Bob were talking in the passage. I called out to her to hurry and get ready, and she went off, I think to Susie’s room. Then—yes, I called out to Hailey through the wall and he answered. He answered.”

“What did you say?”