Alleyn followed the stretcher downstairs. He watched the mortuary van drive away, had a final word with his colleagues, and went next door to call on Octavius Browne.

Octavius, after hours, used his shop as his sitting-room. With the curtains drawn, the lamp on his reading table glowing and the firelight shining on his ranks of books, the room was enchanting. So, in his way, was Octavius, sunk deep in a red morocco chair with his book in his hand and his cat on his knee.

He had removed his best suit and, out of habit, had changed into old grey trousers and a disreputable but becoming velvet coat. For about an hour after Richard Dakers left (Anelida having refused to see him), Octavius had Been miserable. Then she had come down, looking pale but familiar, saying she was sorry she’d been tiresome. She had kissed the top of his head and made him an omelette for his supper and had settled in her usual Monday night place on the other side of the fireplace behind a particularly large file in which she was writing up their catalogue. Once, Octavius couldn’t resist sitting up high in order to look at her and as usual she made a hideous face at him and he made one back at her, which was a private thing they did on such occasions. He was reassured but not entirely so. He had a very deep affection for Anelida, but he was one of those people in whom the distress of those they love begets a kind of compassionate irritation. He liked Anelida to be gay and dutiful and lovely to look at; when he suspected that she had been crying he felt at once distressed and helpless and the sensation bored him because he didn’t understand it.

When Alleyn rang the bell Anelida answered it. He saw, at once, that she had done her eyes up to hide the signs of tears.

Many of Octavius’s customers were also his friends and it was not unusual for them to call after hours. Anelida supposed that Alleyn’s was that sort of visit and so did Octavius, who was delighted to see him. Alleyn sat down between them, disliking his job.

“You look so unrepentantly cosy and Dickensian,” he said, “both of you, that I feel like an interloper.”

“My dear Alleyn, I do hope your allusion is not to that other and unspeakable little Nell and her drooling grandparent. No, I’m sure it’s not. You are thinking of Bleak House, perhaps, and your fellow-investigator’s arrival at his friend’s fireside. I seem to remember, though, that his visit ended uncomfortably in an arrest. I hope you’ve left your manacles at the Yard.”

Alleyn said, “As a matter of fact, Octavius, I am here on business, though not, I promise, to take either of you into custody.”

“Really? How very intriguing! A bookish reference perhaps? Some malefactor with a flair for the collector’s item?”

“I’m afraid not,” Alleyn said. “It’s a serious business, Octavius, and indirectly it concerns you both. I believe you were at Miss Mary Bellamy’s birthday party this evening, weren’t you?”

Anelida and her uncle both made the same involuntary movement of their hands. “Yes,” Octavius said. “For a short time. We were.”

“When did you arrive?”

“At seven. We were asked,” Octavius said, “for six-thirty, but Anelida informed me it is the ‘done thing’ nowadays to be late.”

“We waited,” Anelida said, “till other people had begun to stream in.”

“So you kept an eye on the earlier arrivals?”

“A bit. I did. They were rather intimidating.”

“Did you by any chance see anybody go in with a bunch of Parma violets?”

Octavius jerked his leg. “Damn you, Hodge,” he ejaculated and added mildly, “He makes bread on one’s thigh. Unconscionable feline, be gone.”

He cuffed the cat and it leapt indignantly to the floor.

Alleyn said, “I know you left early. I believe I know why.”

“Mr. Alleyn,” Anelida said. “What’s happened? Why are you talking like this?”

Alleyn said, “It is a serious matter.”

“Has Richard…?” she began and stopped. “What are you trying to tell us?”

“He’s all right. He’s had a shock but he’s all right.”

“My dear Alleyn…”

“Unk,” she said, “we’d better just listen.”

And Alleyn told them, carefully and plainly, what had happened. He said nothing of the implications.

“I wonder,” he ended, “that you haven’t noticed the comings and goings outside.”

“Our curtains are drawn, as you see,” Octavius said. “We had no occasion to look out. Had we, Nelly?”

Anelida said, “This will hurt Richard more than anything else that has ever happened to him.” And then with dismay, “I wouldn’t see him when he came in. I turned him away. He won’t forgive me and I won’t forgive myself.”

“My darling child, you had every cause to behave as you did. She was an enchanting creature but evidently not always prettily behaved,” Octavius said. “I always think,” he added, “that one does a great disservice to the dead when one praises them inaccurately. Nil nisi, if you will, but at least let the bonum be authentic.”

“I’m not thinking of her!” she cried out. “I’m thinking of Richard.”

“Are you, indeed, my pet?” he said uncomfortably.

Anelida said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Alleyn. This is bad behaviour, isn’t it? You must put it down to the well-known hysteria of theatre people.”

“I put it down to the natural result of shock,” Alleyn said, “and believe me, from what I’ve seen of histrionic behaviour, yours is in the last degree conservative. You must be a beginner.”

“How right you are!” she said and looked gratefully at him.

The point had been reached where he should tell them of the implications and he was helped by Octavius, who said, “But why, my dear fellow, are you concerned in all this? Do the police in cases of accident…”

“That’s just it,” Alleyn said. “They do. They have to make sure.”

He explained why they had to make sure. When he said that he must know exactly what had happened in the conservatory, Anelida turned so pale that he wondered if she, too, was going to faint. But she waited for a moment, taking herself in hand, and then told him, very directly, what had happened.

Timon Gantry, Montague and Richard had been talking to her about her reading the leading role in Husbandry in Heaven. Mary Bellamy had come in, unnoticed by them, and had heard enough to make her realize what was afoot.

“She was very angry,” Anelida said steadily. “She thought of it as a conspiracy and she accused me of — of—” Her voice faltered but in a moment she went on. “She said I’d been setting my cap at Richard to further my own ends in the theatre. I don’t remember everything she said. They all tried to stop her, but that seemed to make her more angry. Kate Cavendish and Bertie Saracen had come in with Mr. Templeton. When she saw them she attacked them as well. It was something about another new production. She accused them, too, of conspiracy. I could see Unk on the other side of the glass door, like somebody you want very badly in a nightmare and can’t reach. And then Mr. Templeton went out and spoke to him. And then I went out. And Unk behaved perfectly. And we came home.”

“Beastly experience,” Alleyn said. “For both of you.”

“Oh horrid,” Octavius agreed. “And very puzzling. She was, to meet, you know, so perfectly enchanting. One is quite at a loss…!” He rumpled his hair.

“Poor Unky!” Anelida said.

“Was Colonel Warrender in the conservatory?”

“That is Templeton’s cousin, isn’t it? One sees the likeness,” said Octavius. “Yes, he was. He came into the hall and tried to say something pleasant, poor man.”

“So did the others,” Anelida said. “I’m afraid I wasn’t as responsive as I ought to have been. I — we just walked out.”

“And Richard Dakers walked out after you?”

“Yes,” she said. “He did. And I went off to my room and wouldn’t see him. Which is so awful.”

“So what did he do?” Alleyn asked Octavius.