“Did you ever see such a change in anyone as appears in the somewhat precious Mandrake?” asked Troy, hunting in his wardrobe.

“It takes murder to mould a man.”

“Do you think the statement he’s written is dependable?”

“As regards fact, yes, I should say so. As regards his interpretation of fact, I fancy it wanders a bit. For a symbolic expressionist, he seems to have remained very firmly wedded to a convention. But perhaps that’s the secret of two-dimensional poetic drama. I wouldn’t know. Is that a car?”

“Yes.”

“Then I must be off.” He kissed his wife, who was absently scrubbing at her painty nose with the collar of her smock. She looked at him, scowling a little.

“This is the worst sort of luck,” said Alleyn. ”It was being such a good holiday.”

“I hate these cases,” said Troy.

“Not more than I do, bless you.”

“For a different reason.”

“I’m so sorry,” he said quickly. “I know.”

“No, you don’t, Rory. Not squeamishness, nowadays— exactly. I wish Br’er Fox was with you.”

She went downstairs with him and saw him go off with Mandrake, his hat pulled down over his right eye, the collar of his heavy raincoat turned up, his camera slung over his shoulder and his suit-case in his hand.

“He looks as if he was off on a winter sports holiday,” said Dinah. “I don’t mean to be particularly callous, but there’s no denying a murder is rather exciting.”

“Dinah!” said her father automatically.

They heard the car start up the lane.

Alleyn sat in the back seat and read through Mandrake’s notes. He was parted from Mr. Bewling by a large luncheon basket provided by Dinah Copeland. “We’ll open it,” said Chloris Wynne, “at our first breakdown. If The Others overheard me saying that, I daresay they won’t let us have a breakdown, so that they can collar the lunch.”

“What can you mean?” asked Mandrake.

“Don’t you know about The Others?” said Chloris in a sprightly manner. “They’re the ones that leave nails and broken glass on the road. They hide things when you’re in a hurry. They’ve only got one arm and one leg each, you know. So they take single gloves and stockings, and they’re frightfully keen on keys and unanswered letters.”

“My God, are you being whimsical?” Mandrake demanded, and Alleyn thought he recognized that particular shade of caressing rudeness which is the courtship note among members of the advanced intelligentsia. He was not mistaken. Miss Wynne made a small preening movement.

“Don’t pretend you’re not interested in The Others,” she said. “I bet they take the top of your fountain-pen often enough.” She turned her beautifully arranged head to look at Alleyn. “Bleached,” he thought automatically, “but I daresay she’s quite a nice creature.”

“Do they ever get into Scotland Yard, Mr. Alleyn?” she asked.

“Do they not? They are the authors of most anonymous letters, I fancy.”

“There!” she cried. “Mr. Alleyn doesn’t think I’m whimsical.” He saw, with some misgivings, that Mandrake had removed his left hand from the driving-wheel, and reflected, not for the first time, that affairs of sentiment will flourish under the most unpropitious circumstances. “But she’s rattled all the same,” he thought. “This brightness is all my eye. I wonder how well she knew the young man who is dead.” His reflections were interrupted by James Bewling, who cleared his throat portentously.

“Axcuse me, sir,” said James. “I bin thinking.”

“Indeed?” said Mandrake, apprehensively. “What’s the matter, James?”

“I bin thinking,” repeated James: “Being this-yurr is a lethal matter, and being this gentleman is going into the thick of it with his eyes only half-open like a kitten, and being he’ll be burning in his official heart and soul to be axing you this axing you that, I bin thinking it might be agreeable if I left the party along the Ogg’s Corner.”

“Whatever do you mean, James?” asked Chloris. “You can’t just walk out into a snowdrift from motives of delicacy.”

“It’s not so bad as that, Miss. My wold aunty, Miss Fancy Bewling, bides in cottage along the Ogg’s Corner. Her’s ninety-one yurrs of age and so cantankerous an old masterpiece as ever you see. Reckon her’ll be pleased as Punch to blow me up at her leisure until Mr. Blandish and his chaps comes along, when I’ll get a lift and direct ’em best way to Highfold.”

“Well, James,” said Mandrake, “it’s not a bad idea. We’ll be all right. I know the way and we’ve ploughed a sort of path for ourselves. What do you think, Mr. Alleyn?”

“If there’s any danger of Blandish missing his way,” said Alleyn, “I’d be very glad to think you were there, Bewling.”

“Good enough, sir. Then put me down if you please, souls, at next turning but one. Don’t miss thicky little twiddling lane up to Pen Gidding, Mr. Mandrake, sir, and be bold to rush ’er up when she skiddles.”

So they dropped him by his aunt’s cottage, and it seemed to Alleyn that Miss Wynne watched him go with some regret. She said that Mandrake might despise James, but that she considered he had shown extraordinary tact and forbearance. “He must have been dying to know more about the disaster,” she said, “but he never so much as asked a leading question.”

“We talked pretty freely without him having to bother,” Mandrake pointed out. “However, I agree it was nice of James. Is there anything you want to ask us, Alleyn? By dint of terrific concentration I can manage to keep the car on its tracks and my mind more or less on the conversation.”

Alleyn took Mandrake’s notes from his pocket and at the rustle of paper he saw Chloris turn her head sharply. Something about the set of Mandrake’s shoulders suggested that he too was suddenly alert.

“If I may,” said Alleyn, “I should like to go over these notes with you. It’s fortunate for me that you decided to make this very clear and well-ordered summary. I’m sure it gives the skeleton of events as completely as possible, and that is invaluable. But I should like, with your help, to clothe the bones in a semblance of flesh.”

This was spoken in what Troy called “the official manner,” and it was the first Chloris and Mandrake had heard of this manner. Neither of them answered, and Alleyn knew that with one short speech he had established an atmosphere of uneasy expectation. He was right. Until this moment Chloris and Mandrake had wished above all things for the assurance that Alleyn would take charge. Now that, with a certain crispness and a marked change of manner, he had actually done so, each of them felt an icy touch of apprehension. They had set in motion a process which they were unable to stop. They were not yet nervous for themselves but instinctively they moved a little nearer to each other. They had called in the Yard.

“First of all,” said Alleyn, “I should like to go over the notes, putting them into my own words to make quite sure I’ve got hold of the right ends of all the sticks. Will you stop me if I’m wrong? The death of this young man, William Compline, occurred at about ten minutes past ten yesterday evening. He was sitting in a room which communicates with a library, a small sitting-room, and a hall. Just before the discovery of his body, the library was occupied by his host, Mr. Jonathan Royal, by Lady Hersey Amblington, by Miss Chloris Wynne, by Mr. Aubrey Mandrake, and by Mr. Nicholas Compline. The small sitting-room had been occupied by Dr. Francis Hart; but, on his own statement and that of the footman Thomas, it appears that Dr. Hart left the sitting-room — you call it a ‘boudoir,’ I see — at the same time that Thomas came into the hall with a grog tray which he took into the library. That was some minutes after Nicholas Compline had left his brother and joined the party in the libarary, and quite definitely before you all heard the wireless turned on in the smoking-room. The wireless was turned on after the drinks came in. You agreed you would like to hear it, and Nicholas Compline opened the door and called out to his brother. A screen hid William but Nicholas heard someone cross the room and a moment later the wireless struck up ‘Boomps-a-Daisy.’ ”