How different, Sophy thought, from the behaviour of women. We would exclaim, gaze at each other, gabble, ejaculate, tell each other how we felt and talk about instinctive revulsion and how we’d always known, right along, that there was something.

And she suddenly thought it would be satisfactory to have such a talk with the Baroness, though not on any account with Lady Braceley.

They turned back to her, rather like doctors after a consultation.

‘We have been saying, Miss Jason,’ said the Baron, ‘that as far as we ourselves are concerned there can be only slight formalities. Since we were in company from the time he left us, both in the Mithraeum and when we returned (you with Mr Grant and my wife and I with Mr Alleyn) until we all met in the church portion, we cannot be thought of either as witnesses or as—as—

‘Suspects?’ Sophy said.

‘So. You are right to be frank, my dear young lady,’ said the Baron, looking at Sophy with solemn and perhaps rather shocked approval.

Grant said, ‘Well, of course she is. Let’s all be frank about it, for heaven’s sake. Mailer was a bad lot and somebody has killed him. I don’t suppose any of us condones the taking of life under any circumstances whatever, and it is, of course, horrible to think of the explosion of hatred, or alternatively the calculated manoeuvring, that led to his death. But one can scarcely be expected to mourn for him.’ He looked very hard at Sophy. ‘I don’t,’ he said. ‘And I won’t pretend I do. It’s a bad man out of the way.’

The Baron waited for a moment and said very quietly, ‘You speak, Mr Grant, with conviction. Why do you say so positively that this was a bad man?’

Grant had gone very white but he answered without hesitation. ‘I have first-hand knowledge,’ he said. ‘He was a blackmailer. He blackmailed me. Alleyn knows this and so does Sophy. And if me, why not others?’

‘Why not?’ Van der Veghel said. ‘Why not, indeed!’ He hit himself on the chest and Sophy wondered why the gesture was not ridiculous. ‘I too,’ he said. ‘I who speak to you. I too.’ He waited for a moment. ‘It has been a great relief to me to say this,’ he said. ‘A great relief. I shall not regret it, I think.’

‘Well,’ Grant said, ‘it’s lucky we are provided with alibis. I suppose a lot of people would say we have spoken like fools.’

‘It is appropriate sometimes to be a fool. The belief of former times that there is God’s wisdom in the utterances of fools was founded in truth,’ the Baron proclaimed. ‘No. I do not regret.’

A silence fell between them and into it there was insinuated the sound of a distant crowd—shrilling of whistles. A police-car shot down the street with its siren blasting.