“Depends on the strength. This stuff is highly concentrated. Hexa-ethyl-tetra-phosphate of which the deadly ingredient is TEPP: tetra-ethyl-pyro-phosphate. Broken down, I’d say, with some vehicle to reduce the viscosity. The nozzle’s a very fine job: designed for indoor use. In my opinion the stuff shouldn’t be let loose on the market. If she got some in the mouth, and it’s evident she did, it might only be a matter of minutes. Some recorded cases mention nausea and convulsions. In others, the subject has dropped down insensible and died a few seconds later.”

Fox said, “When the woman — Florence — found her, she was on the floor in what Florence describes as a sort of fit.”

“I’ll see Florence next,” Alleyn said.

“And when Dr. Harkness and Mr. Templeton arrived she was dead,” Fox concluded.

“Where is Harkness?” Dr. Curtis demanded. “He’s pretty damn casual, isn’t he? He ought to have shown up at once.”

“He was flat-out with a hangover among the exotics in the conservatory,” Alleyn said. “I stirred him up to look at Mr. Richard Dakers, who was in a great tizzy before he knew there was anything to have a tizzy about. When I talked to him he fainted.”

“What a mob!” Curtis commented in disgust.

“Curtis, if you’ve finished here I think you’ll find your colleague in reasonably working order downstairs.”

“He’d better be. Everything is fixed now. I’ll do the p.m. tonight.”

“Good. Fox, you and I had better press on. We’ve got an office. Third on the right from here.”

They found Gracefield outside the door looking scandalized.

“I’m very sorry, I’m sure, sir,” he said, “but the keys on this landing appear to have been removed. If you require to lock up…”

“ ’T, ’t!” Fox said and dived in his pocket. “Thoughtless of me! Try this one.”

Gracefield coldly accepted it. He showed Alleyn into a small pleasantly furnished study and left Fox to look after himself, which he did very comfortably.

“Will there be anything further, sir?” Gracefield asked Alleyn.

“Nothing. This will do admirably.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Here,” Fox said, “are the other keys. They’re interchangeable, which is why I took the liberty of removing them.”

Gracefield received them without comment and retired.

“I always seem to hit it off better,” Fox remarked, “with the female servants,”

“No doubt they respond more readily to your unbridled body-urge,” said Alleyn.

“That’s one way of putting it, Mr. Alleyn,” Fox primly conceded.

“And the other is that I tipped that antarctic monument. Never mind. You’ll have full play in a minute with Florence. Take a look at this room. It was Mr. Richard Dakers’s study. I suppose he now inhabits a bachelor flat somewhere, but he was adopted and brought up by the Templetons. Here you have his boyhood, adolescence and early maturity in microcosm. The usual school groups on one wall. Note the early dramatic interest. On the other three, his later progress. O.U.D.S. Signed photographs of lesser lights succeeded by signed photographs of greater ones. Sketches from unknown designers followed by the full treatment from famous designers and topped up by Saracen. The last is for a production that opened three years ago and closed last week. Programme of Command Performance. Several framed photographs of Miss Mary Bellamy, signed with vociferous devotion. One small photograph of Mr. Charles Templeton. A calender on the desk to support the theory that he left the house a year ago. Books from E. Nesbit to Samuel Beckett. Who’s Who in the Theatre and Spotlight and cast an eye at this one, will you?”

He pulled out a book and showed it to Fox. “Handbook of Poisons by a Medical Practitioner. Bookplate: ‘Ex Libris C. H. Templeton.’ Let’s see if the medical practitioner has anything to say about pest killers. Here we are. Poisons of Vegetable Origin. Tobacco. Alkaloid of.” He read for a moment or two. “Rather scanty. Only one case quoted. Gentleman who swallowed nicotine from a bottle and died quietly in thirty seconds after heaving a deep sigh. Warnings about agricultural use of. And here are the newer concoctions including HETP and TEPP. Exceedingly deadly and to be handled with the greatest care. Ah, well!”

He replaced the book.

“That’ll be the husband’s,” Fox said. “Judging by the bookplate.”

“The husband’s. Borrowed by the ward and accessible to all and sundry. For what it’s worth. Well, Foxkin, that about completes our tour of the room. Tabloid history of the tastes and career of Richard Dakers. Hullo! Look here, Fox.”

He was stooping over the writing desk and had opened the blotter.

“This looks fresh,” he said. “Green ink. Ink on desk dried up and anyway, blue.”

There was a small Georgian glass above the fireplace. Alleyn held the blotting-paper to it and they looked at the reflected image:

Alleyn copied this fragmentary message on a second sheet of paper, carried the blotter back to the desk and very carefully removed the sheet in question.

“We’ll put the experts on to this,” he said, “but I’m prepared to take a sporting chance on the result, Br’er Fox. Are you?”

“I’d give it a go, Mr. Alleyn.”

“See if you can find Florence, will you? I’ll take a flying jump while you’re at it.”

Fox went out. Alleyn put his copy of the message on the desk and looked at it.

The correct method of deciphering and completing a blotting-paper impression is by measurement, calculation and elimination but occasionally, for persons with a knack, the missing letters start up vividly in the mind and the scientific method is thus accurately anticipated. When he was on his game, Alleyn possessed this knack and he now made use of it. Without allowing himself any second thoughts, he wrote rapidly within the copy and stared with disfavour at the result. He then opened Richard Daker’s dispatch case and found it contained a typescript of a play, Husbandry in Heaven. He flipped the pages over and came across some alterations in green ink and in the same hand as the letter.

“Miss Florence Johnson,” said Fox, opening the door and standing aside with something of the air of a large sporting dog retrieving a bird. Florence, looking not unlike an apprehensive fowl, came in.

Alleyn saw an unshapely little woman, with a pallid, tear-stained face and hair so remorselessly dyed that it might have been a raven wig. She wore that particular air of disillusionment that is associated with the Cockney and she reeked of backstage.

“The Superintendent,” Fox told her, “just wants to hear the whole story like you told it to me. Nothing to worry about.”

“Of course not,” Alleyn said. “Come and sit down. We won’t keep you long.”

Florence looked as if she might prefer to stand, but compromised by sitting on the edge of the chair Fox had pushed forward.

“This has been a sad business for you,” Alleyn said.

“That’s right,” Florence said woodenly.

“And I’m sure you must want to have the whole thing cleared up as soon and as quietly as possible.”

“Clear enough, isn’t it? She’s dead. You can’t have it much clearer than that.”

“You can’t indeed. But you see it’s our job to find out why.”

“Short of seeing it happen you wouldn’t get much nearer, would you? If you can read, that is.”

“You mean the tin of Slaypest?”

“Well, it wasn’t perfume,” Florence said impertinently. “They put that in bottles.” She shot a glance at Alleyn and seemed to undergo a slight change of temper. Her lips trembled and she compressed them. “It wasn’t all that pleasant,” she said. “Seeing what I seen. Finding her like that. You’d think I might be let alone.”