“I remember that,” said Nicholas. “I left the room a very short time afterwards.”

“So there was no Buddha on the top of the door then,” said Jonathan. “I am persuaded that apart from Nick having gone out in safety, proving that the trap was laid later than this, we might rest assured that if the room light was on the trap had not been set. One would be almost certain to see the dark shape on the top of the door if the light was on. I have found out, by dint of cautious enquiries, that there were no servants upstairs at that time. It appears that those members of my staff who were not with Caper, in the dining-room, were listening to the wireless in the servants’ hall. Now you see, I have done quite well, haven’t I, with my amateur detection? Let me see. We have found alibis for Sandra, Hersey, Madame Lisse, Aubrey and, I hope, myself. What do you think, Aubrey?”

“Eh? Oh, I think it was more than ten minutes before the thud that you came downstairs,” Mandrake said.

“Well now, Miss Chloris,” said Jonathan, with a little bend in her direction. “What about you?”

“When it happened I was in my room. I’d had a bath and was dressing. I don’t think I can prove I didn’t go out of my room before that. But I didn’t leave it after I went upstairs except to go into the bathroom next door. When I heard the crash and Nicholas cried out, I put on my dressing-gown and ran into the passage.”

Mandrake was roused by a sharp sensation of panic. “What does that thing weigh?” he asked. “The Buddha thing?”

“It’s heavy,” said Jonathan. “It’s solid brass. About twenty pounds, I should say.”

“Do you think Miss Wynne could raise an object weighing twenty pounds above her head and balance it on the top of a door?”

“Nobody’s going to worry about whether she could or couldn’t,” said Nicholas impatiently. “She didn’t.”

“Quite so,” said Mandrake.

“Well,” said Chloris mildly, “that’s true enough.”

“Nobody’s asked me for my alibi,” said William. “I think it’s rather feeble, all this, because, I mean, we know that Hart did it.”

“But the point is—” Jonathan began.

“I was in the smoking-room,” said William ruthlessly, “listening to the wireless. I suddenly realized I was a bit late and started to go upstairs. I was just about up when Nick let out that screech. I heard you come down, Jonathan, about ten minutes earlier. You spoke to Caper in the hall about drinks at dinner and I heard you. But that proves nothing, of course. Oh, wait a bit, though. I could tell you what the news was. There’s been a reconnaissance flight over—”

“Oh, what the hell’s it matter?” said Nicholas. “What’s the good of talking like little detective fans? I’m sorry to be rude, but while you’re all trying to bail each other out, our charming beauty specialist is probably thinking up a new death trap on the third-time-lucky principle.”

“But to try anything else, when he knows perfectly well we suspect him!” Hersey exclaimed. “It’d be the action of a madman.”

“He is a madman,” said Nicholas.

“I say,” said William. “Has anybody done anything about that Buddha? I mean, it’s probably smothered in his finger-prints. If we’re going to give him in charge…”

“But are we going to give him in charge?” asked Hersey uneasily.

“I will,” said William. “If Nick doesn’t, I will.”

“I don’t think you can. It’s not your business.”

“Why not?” William demanded. Jonathan cut in hurriedly, asking William if he proposed to make his mother’s tragedy into front-page publicity. The conversation became fantastic. William showed a tendency to shout and Nicholas to sulk. Chloris turned upon Mandrake a face so eloquent of misery and alarm that he instantly took her hand and found more reality in the touch of her fingers, moving restlessly in his grasp, than in anything else that was happening. Jonathan began to explain that he had locked the Buddha away in his room. He reminded them of the nature of the trap. When Nicholas had returned to his room he had found the door not quite closed. The room was in darkness, as he had left it. He had pushed at the door with his left hand. The door had resisted him, and then given way suddenly. At the same instant his arm had been struck and Madame Lisse had screamed. He had cried out and stumbled into the room.

Nicholas irritably confirmed this description and cut in to say he had seen Dr. Hart go into the bathroom adjoining Nicholas’ room, and had heard him turn on the taps. “Of course he simply dodged out when he knew I had gone. He was spying on me, I suppose, through the crack of the door. His room’s only about fourteen feet away from mine on the opposite side of the passage.”

Mandrake, nervously tightening his grip on Chloris’ hand, thought with a sort of unreal precision of the guest wing. Mrs. Compline in the front corner room, then Madame Lisse, a cupboard, and Mandrake himself, all in a row, with a bathroom; then William; and then Hart in the corner room at the back, and another bathroom around the corner. Hersey Amblington in the converted nursery beyond. On the other side of the passage overlooking the central court round which the old Jacobean house was built, were Nicholas’ room, opposite William’s, and then a bathroom and an unoccupied room. Nicholas’ room was diagonally opposed to Hart’s. Hart could easily have spied on Nicholas, and Mandrake pictured him turning on the bath taps and then perhaps opening the door to return to his room for something and seeing Nicholas stealing down the passage towards Madame Lisse’s door. He pictured Hart as the traditional figure of the suspicious lover, his compact paunch curving above the girdle of his dressing-gown. “He clutched a sponge-bag to his breast, and his eye was glued to the crevice,” Mandrake decided. Perhaps he saw Nicholas tap discreetly at Madame Lisse’s door or scratch with his finger-nail. Perhaps Nicholas slipped in without ceremony. And then, what? Mandrake wondered. A quick sprint down the passage to the niche? A lopsided shuffle back to Nicholas’ room? Did Dr. Hart carry the Buddha under the folds of his dressing-gown? Did he turn on the light in Nicholas’ room and climb on the chair? Was his somewhat unremarkable face distorted with fury as he performed these curious exercises? No. Try as he might, Mandrake could not picture Hart and the Buddha without investing the whole affair with an improper air of opéra bouffe. He was roused from his reverie by Chloris’ withdrawing her hand and by William’s saying in a loud voice: “You know, this is exactly like a thriller, except for one thing.”

“What do you mean, William?” asked Jonathan crossly.

“In a thriller,” William explained, “there’s always a corpse and he can’t give evidence. But, here,” and he pointed his finger at his brother, “you might say we have the corpse with us. That’s the difference.”

“Let us go to the library,” said Jonathan.