Warrender barked, “Does it matter?”

“Not that I know,” Alleyn murmured. “Why should it? Let’s find out.”

Pinky said boldly, “I don’t see a bit why it should matter. We all heard about it.”

“Did you?” Alleyn asked. “When? At the party?”

She blushed scarlet. “Yes. It was mentioned there.”

“In the conservatory?”

Bertie said in a hurry, “Mentioned. Just mentioned.”

“And we haven’t had the author’s name yet, have we?”

Pinky said, “It’s a new play by Dicky Dakers, isn’t it, Timmy?”

“Yes, dear,” Gantry agreed and refrained with some difficulty, Alleyn thought, from casting his eyes up to heaven. “In the hall I had a word with her about reading the part for me,” he said.

“Right. And,” Alleyn pursued, “might that not explain why Dakers also wanted to have a further word with Miss Lee?”

They agreed feverishly.

“Strange,” he continued, “that this explanation didn’t occur to any of you.”

Bertie laughed musically. “Weren’t we sillies?” he asked. “Fancy!”

“Perhaps you all hurtled into the hall in order to offer your congratulations to Miss Lee?”

“That’s right!” Bertie cried, opening his eyes very wide. “So we did! And anyway,” he added, “I wanted the loo. That was really why I came out. Anything else was purely incidental. I’d forgotten.”

“Well,” Alleyn remarked, “since you’re all so bad at remembering your motives I suppose I’d better go on cooking them up for you.”

Pinky Cavendish made a quick expostulatory movement with her hands. “Yes?” Alleyn asked her. “What is it?”

“Nothing. Not really. Only — I wish you wouldn’t make one feel shabby,” Pinky said.

“Do I? I’m sorry about that.”

“Look!” she said. “We’re all of us shocked and horrified about Mary. She was our friend — a great friend. No, Timmy, please let me. She was tricky and temperamental and exacting and she said and did things that we’d rather forget about now. The important thing to remember is that one way or another, at one time or another, we’ve all loved her. You couldn’t help it,” Pinky said, “or I couldn’t. Perhaps I should only speak for myself.”

Alleyn asked gently, “Are you trying to tell me that you are protecting her memory?”

“You might put it like that,” Pinky said.

“Nonsense, dear,” Gantry said impatiently. “It doesn’t arise.”

Alleyn decided to dig a little further.

“The farewells being accomplished,” he said, “and the two guests departed, what did you all do? Miss Cavendish?”

“Oh dear! What did I do? I know! I tried to nip upstairs, but the camera men were all over the bottom steps so I returned to the party.”

“Mr. Saracen?”

“The gents. Downstairs. Last, as you’ve observed, on the right. Then I beetled back, bright as a button, for the speeches.”

“Mr. Gantry?”

“I returned to the drawing-room, heard the speeches, and helped Templeton clear the way for the…” he jibbed for a moment, “for what would have been the last scene. The opening of the presents.”

“Colonel Warrender?”

Warrender was staring at some part of the wall above Alleyn’s head. “Went back,” he said.

“Where?”

“To the party.”

“Oo!” Bertie said.

“Yes, Mr. Saracen?”

“Nothing,” Bertie said hurriedly. “Pay no attention.”

Alleyn looked round at them all. “Tell me,” he said, “hasn’t Richard Dakers, up till now, written his plays exclusively for Miss Bellamy? Light comedies? Husbandry in Heaven doesn’t suggest a light comedy.”

He knew by their silence that he had struck home. Pinky’s face alone would have told him as much. It was already too late when Warrender said defensively, “No need to put all his eggs in one basket, isn’t it?”

“Exactly,” Gantry agreed.

“Did Miss Bellamy hold this view?”

“I still fail to understand…” Warrender began, but Bertie Saracen cried out in a sort of rage:

“I really don’t see, I don’t for the life of me see why we should fiddle and fuss and fabricate. Honestly! It’s all very well to be nice about poor Mary’s memory and Dicky’s dilemma and everybody madly loving everybody else, but sooner or later Mr. Alleyn’s going to find out and then we’ll all look peculiar and I for one won’t and I’m sorry, Timmy, but I’m going to spill beans and unbag cats galore and announce in a ringing head tone that Mary minded like hell and that she made a scene in the conservatory and insulted the girl and Dicky left in a rage and why not, because suppose somebody did do something frightful to Mary, it couldn’t be Dicky because Dicky flounced out of the house while Mary was still fighting fit and cutting her cake. And one other thing. I don’t know why Colonel Warrender should go all cagey and everything but he didn’t go straight back to the party. He went out. At the front door. I saw him on my way back from the loo. Now then!”

He had got to his feet and stood there, blinking, but defiant.

Gantry said, “Oh, well!” and flung up his hands.

Pinky said, “I’m on Bertie’s side.”

But Warrender, purple in the face, advanced upon Bertie.

“Don’t touch me!” Bertie shouted angrily.

“You little rat!” Warrender said and seized his arm.

Bertie gave an involuntary giggle. “That’s what she called me,” he said.

“Take,” Warrender continued between his teeth, “that damned impertinent grin off your face and hold your tongue, sir, or by God I’ll give you something to make you.”

He grasped Bertie with his left hand. He had actually drawn back his right and Alleyn had moved in, when a voice from the door said: “Will somebody be good enough to tell me what goes on in this house?”

Warrender lowered his hand and let Bertie go, Gantry uttered a short oath and Pinky, a stifled cry. Alleyn turned.

A young man with a white face and distracted air confronted him in the doorway.

“Thank God!” Bertie cried. “Dicky!”

The most noticeable thing about Richard Dakers was his agitation. He was pale, his face was drawn and his hands were unsteady. During the complete silence that followed Bertie’s ejaculation, Richard stood where he was, his gaze fixed with extraordinary concentration upon Colonel Warrender. Warrender, in his turn, looked at him with, as far as his soldierly blueprint of a face could express anything, the same kind of startled attention. In a crazy sort of way, each might have been the reflection of the other.

Warrender said, “Can I have a word with you, old boy? Shall we…?”

“No!” Richard said quickly and then, “I’m sorry. I don’t understand. What’s that dammed bobby doing in the hall? What’s happened? Where’s everybody? Where’s Mary?”

Alleyn said, “One moment,” and went to him. “You’re Mr. Richard Dakers, aren’t you? I’m from Scotland — Yard — Alleyn …At the moment I’m in charge of a police inquiry here. Shall we find somewhere where I can tell you why?”

“I’ll tell him,” Warrender said.

“I think not,” Alleyn rejoined and opened the door. “Come along,” he said and looked at the others. “You will stay here, if you please.”

Richard put his hand to his head. “Yes. All right. But — why?” Perhaps out of force of habit he turned to Timon Gantry. “Timmy?” he said. “What is this?”

Gantry said, “We must accept authority, Dicky. Go with him.”

Richard stared at him in amazement and walked out of the room, followed by Alleyn and Fox.

“In here, shall we?” Alleyn suggested and led the way into the deserted drawing-room.

There, he told Richard, as briefly as possible and without emphasis, what had happened. Richard listened distractedly, making no interruption but once or twice wiping his hand over his face as if a cobweb lay across it. When Alleyn had finished he said haltingly, “Mary? It’s happened to Mary? How can I possibly believe it?”