“Yes. And that completes the skeleton.” Alleyn folded the notes and put them in his pocket. “As they used to say in Baker Street: ‘You are in possession of the facts.’ I’d like a little news about the people. You say that, with the exception of your host, you had met none of them before. That’s not counting Miss Wynne, of course.”

“Yes, it is,” said Chloris, and with an air of great demureness she added: “Aubrey and I are complete strangers.”

“I don’t suppose I shall know her if I meet her again.” Alleyn sighed as Mandrake once more removed his left hand from the driving-wheel. “He will resent everything I say to her,” thought Alleyn, “and she will adore his resentment. Blow!” However, he introduced the subject of motive, which Mandrake, in his notes, had dealt with illusively, unconsciously supposing the reader would be almost as familiar as himself with the relationships of the eight guests to each other and to their host. In a very short time Alleyn discovered that these two were quite ready to talk about Madam Lisse and Lady Hersey, about Mrs. Compline and Dr. Hart, and about William’s fury when he discovered that Hart was the author of his mother’s disfigurement. They were less ready to discuss in detail Hart’s enmity to Nicholas, though they never tired of stressing it. Hart had threatened Nicholas. Nicholas had goaded Hart until he completely lost control of himself. That was the burden of their song. It was on account of Nicholas’ attentions to Madame Lisse, they said. When Alleyn asked if Nicholas knew that Madame Lisse was Madame Hart, they said they hadn’t asked him, and Chloris added, with a new edge to her voice, that it was highly probable. Alleyn said mildly that it appeared that Nicholas had acted like a fool. “He seems to have baited Hart to the top of his bent and at the same time been rather frightened of him.”

“But that’s Nicholas all over,” said Chloris quickly. “It was exactly that. ‘The small boy tweaking the dog’s tail.’ That’s Nicholas.” Mandrake cut in rather hurriedly but Alleyn stopped him. “You know Compline well, Miss Wynne?” She took so long to answer that he was about to repeat the question, which he was certain she had heard, when without turning her head, she said: “Yes. Quite well. I was engaged to him. You’d better hear all about it, I suppose.”

“I can’t see…” Mandrake began, but this time it was Chloris who stopped him: “It hasn’t anything to do with it, I know, but I think Mr. Alleyn would rather see for himself.”

“An admirable conclusion,” said Alleyn lightly, and he heard without further comment the story of the two engagements. When she had finished, he made her a little speech, saying he was sorry under such tragic circumstances to be obliged to pester her with questions. Nothing could have been more uncomfortable than their reception of this simple offer of sympathy. Their silence was eloquent of embarrassment. Chloris did not turn her head and when Alleyn caught sight of Mandrake’s face in the driving glass it was scarlet and scowling.

“You needn’t bother,” said Chloris in a high voice. “I wasn’t in love with William. Didn’t you guess that? As I have already explained to Aubrey, I did it on the rebound from Nicholas.” In spite of herself, her voice lost composure and she ended up shakily: “That doesn’t say I’m not terribly sorry. I liked old Bill. I liked him tremendously.”

“I liked him too,” said Mandrake. “He was an oddity, wasn’t he?” Chloris nodded, and Alleyn thought that in making this unemphatic comment on William Compline, Mandrake had shown sureness of touch and a certain delicacy of understanding. He went on quietly: “He would have interested you, I believe, Alleyn. He was one of those people who speak a thing almost at the same time as they think it, and as he had a curious simplicity about him, some of the things he said were odd and disconcerting. He was quite like his brother to look at. The shape of his head—” Mandrake stumbled a little and then went on rather hurriedly. “From behind, as I explained in those notes, it was difficult to tell them apart. But they couldn’t have been more unalike in temperament, I should say.”

“And he painted?”

“Yes. I haven’t seen any of his works.”

“They were queer,” Chloris said. “You might like them, Aubrey. They might be quite your cup of tea, but most people thought his pictures too embarrassingly bad. I must say I always felt rather shy when I saw them. I never knew what to say.”

“What are they like?” asked Alleyn.

“Well, a bit as if a child had done them, but not quite like that.”

“Very thick oil paint,” said Mandrake, under his breath.

“Why, have you seen one?” asked Chloris, in astonishment.

“No. He told me. He said it rather quaintly. If there was something childlike in his painting, it must have come from himself.”

“Yes, that’s true,” said Chloris, and they began quite tranquilly to discuss William. Alleyn wondered how old they were. Miss Wynne was not more than twenty, he thought, and he remembered a critique of one of Mandrake’s poetic dramas in which the author had been described as extremely young. Perhaps he was twenty-six. They were fortified with all the resilience that youth presents to an emotional shock. In the midst of murder and attempted suicide, they had managed, not only to behave with address and good sense, but also to fall in love with each other. Very odd, thought Alleyn, and listened attentively to what they had to say about William Compline. They were discussing him with some animation. Alleyn was pretty sure they had almost forgotten his presence. This was all to the good, and a firm picture of the murdered and elder Compline began to take form. With owlish gravity, Chloris and Mandrake discussed poor William’s “psychology” and decided that unconscious jealousy of Nicholas, a mother-fixation, an inferiority complex, and a particularly elaborate Œdipus complex were at the bottom of his lightest action and the sole causes of his violent outburst against Hart. “Really,” said Mandrake, “it’s the Ugly Duckling and Cinderella themes. Extraordinarily sound, those folk tales.”

“And of course the painting was simply an effort to overcome the inferiority complex — er, on the pain-pleasure principle,” added Chloris uncertainly. Mandrake remarked that Mrs. Compline’s strong preference for Nicholas was extremely characteristic, but of what Alleyn could not quite make out. However he did get a clear picture of two unhappy people dominated by the selfish, vain, and, according to the two experts in the front seat, excessively oversexed Nicholas. Shorn of intellectual garnishings it was still a sufficiently curious story. One phrase of Chloris’ struck him as being particularly illuminating. “I would have liked to be friends with her,” she said, “but she hated me from the beginning, poor thing. First because I was engaged to Nick, and secondly and even more violently, because, as she made herself suppose, I jilted him for William. I think she knew well enough that Nick hadn’t been exactly the little gent, but she wouldn’t let herself believe that he could do anything that wasn’t perfect. For her he just had to be heroic, don’t you know, and she had a fantastic hatred for anyone who made him look shabby.”

“Did she know about l’affaire Lisse, do you suppose?” asked Mandrake.

“I don’t know. I daresay he kept it dark. He could be pretty quiet about his philanderings when it suited him. But even if she did know I believe she would have taken it as a perfectly natural obsession on Madame Lisse’s part. In her eyes, Nicholas was really rather like one of those Greek gods who lolled about on clouds and said ‘I’ll have that one!’ ”

Alleyn coughed, and Miss Wynne became aware of him. “I suppose,” she said, “you think it revolting of us to talk about him like this.”

“No,” he said, “I would find a show of excessive distress much more disagreeable.”