“When I asked her she went up like a rocket bomb, the story being that Mrs. Plumtree has taken against her and let out something that was told in confidence.”

Alleyn put his head in his hands. “Oh Lord!” he said.

“You meet that kind of thing,” Mr. Fox observed, “in middle-age ladies. Florence says that when Miss Bellamy or Mr. Templeton was out of humour, she would make out she was going to sack Florence, but there was nothing in it. She says she only told Mrs. Plumtree as a joke. I kind of nudged in a remark about Mr. Dakers’s parentage, but she wasn’t having any of that. She turned around and accused me of having a dirty mind and in the next breath had another go at Mrs. Plumtree. All the same,” Mr. Fox added primly, “I reckon there’s something in it. I reckon so from her manner. She appears to be very jealous of anybody who was near the deceased and that takes in Mr. Templeton, Mr. Dakers, Mrs. Plumtree and the Colonel.”

“Good old Florrie,” Alleyn said absent-mindedly.

“You know, sir,” Fox continued heavily, “I’ve been thinking about the order of events. Take the latter part of the afternoon. Say, from when the Colonel used the scent. What happened after that, now?”

“According to himself he went downstairs and had a quick one with Mrs. Templeton in the presence of the servants while Templeton and Dakers were closetcd in the study. All this up to the time when the first guests began to come in. It looks good enough, but it’s not cast iron.”

“Whereas,” Fox continued, “Florence and Mrs. Plumtree went upstairs. Either of them could have gone into Mrs. Templeton’s room, and got up to the odd bit of hanky-panky, couldn’t they, now?”

“The story is that they were together in their parlour until they went downstairs to the party. They’re at daggers-drawn. Do you think that if one of them had popped out of the parlour the other would feel disposed to keep mum about it?”

“Ah. There is that, of course. But it might have been forgotten.”

“Come off it, Foxkin.”

“The same goes for Mr. Templeton and Mr. Dakers. They’ve said, independently of each other, that they were together in the study. I don’t know how you feel about that one, Mr. Alleyn, but I’m inclined to accept it.”

“So am I. Entirely.”

“If we do accept all this, we’ve got to take it that the job was fixed after the guests began to arrive. Now, up to the row in the conservatory the three gentlemen were all in the reception rooms. The Colonel was in attendance on the deceased. Mr. Templeton was also with her receiving the guests and Mr. Dakers was on the lookout for his young lady.”

“What’s more, there was a press photographer near the foot of the stairs, a cinematographer half-way up, and a subsidiary bar at the foot of the backstairs with a caterer’s man on duty throughout. He saw Florence and Ninn and nobody else go up. What’s that leave us in the way of a roaring-hot suspect?”

“It means,” Fox said, “either that one of those two women fixed it then…”

“But when? You mean before they met on the landing and tried to listen in on the famous scene?”

“I suppose I do. Yes. While the photograph was being taken.”

“Yes?”

“Alternatively someone else went up before that.”

“Again, when? It would have to be after the cinema unit moved away and before Mrs. Templeton left the conservatory and came out into the hall where she was photographed with Dakers glowering in the background. And it would have to be before she took him upstairs.”

“Which restricts you to the entrance with the birthday cake and the speeches. I reckon someone could have slipped upstairs then.”

“The general attention being focused on the speakers and the stairs being clear? Yes. I agree with you. So far. But, see here, Fox; this expert didn’t do the trick as simply as that, I’m inclined to think there was one more visit at least, more likely that there were two more, one before and one after the death. Tidying up, you know. If I’m right, there was a certain amount of tidying up.”

“My God,” Fox began with unwonted heat, “what are you getting at, Mr. Alleyn? It’s tough enough as it is, d’you want to make it more difficult? What’s the idea?”

“If it’s any good it’s going to make it easier. Much easier.”

Alleyn stood up.

“You know, Br’er Fox,” he said, “I can see only one explanation that really fits. Take a look at what’s offering. Suicide? Leave her party, go up to her bedroom and spray herself to death? They all scout the notion and so do I. Accident? We’ve had it: the objection being the inappropriateness of the moment for her to horticult and the nature of the stains. Homicide? All right. What’s the jury asked to believe? That she stood stock-still while her murderer pumped a deluge of Slaypest into her face at long and then at short range? Defending counsel can’t keep a straight face over that one. But if, by any giddy chance, I’m on the right track, there’s an answer that still admits homicide. Now, listen, while I check over and see if you can spot a weakness.”

Mr. Fox listened placidly to a succinct argument, his gaze resting thoughtfully the while on the tin, the bottle, and the scent-spray.

“Yes,” he said when Alleyn had finished. “Yes. It adds up, Mr. Alleyn. It fits. The only catch that I can see rests in the little difficulty of our having next-to-nothing to substantiate the theory.”

Alleyn pointed a long finger at the exhibits. “We’ve got those,” he said, “and it’ll go damn hard if we don’t rake up something else in the next half hour.”

“Motive?”

“Motive unknown. It may declare itself. Opportunity’s our bird, Fox. Opportunity, my boy.”

“What’s the next step?”

“I rather fancy shock tactics. They’re all cooped up in the dining-room, aren’t they?”

“All except Mr. Templeton. He’s still in the study. When I looked in they were having supper. He’d ordered it for them. Cold partridge,” Mr. Fox said rather wistfully. “A bit of a waste, really, as they didn’t seem to have much appetite.”

“We’ll see if we can stimulate it,” Alleyn said grimly, “with these,” and waved his hand at the three exhibits.

Pinky Cavendish pushed her plate away and addressed herself firmly to her companions.

“I feel,” she said, “completely unreal. It’s not an agreeable sensation.” She looked round the table. “Is there any reason why we don’t say what’s in all our minds? Here we sit, pretending to eat: every man-jack of us pea-green with worry but cutting the whole thing dead. I can’t do with it. Not for another second. I’m a loquacious woman and I want to talk.”

“Pinky,” Timon Gantry said. “Your sense of timing! Never quite successfully co-ordinated, dear, is it?”

“But, actually,” Bertie Saracen plaintively objected, “I do so feel Pinky’s dead right. I mean we are all devastated and for my part, at least, terrified; but there’s no real future, is there, in maintaining a charnel-house decorum? It can’t improve anything, or can it? And it’s so excessively wearing. Dicky, dear, you won’t misunderstand me, will you? The hearts, I promise you, are utterly in their right place which, speaking for myself, is in the boots.”

Richard, who had been talking in an undertone to Anelida, looked up. “Why not talk,” he said, “if you can raise something that remotely resembles normal conversation.”

Warrender darted a glance at him. “Of course,” he said. “Entirely agree.” But Richard wouldn’t look at Warrender.

“Even abnormal conversation,” Pinky said, “would be preferable to strangulated silence.”

Bertie, with an air of relief, said, “Well then, everybody, let’s face it. We’re not being herded together in a”—he swallowed—“in a communual cell just out of constabular whimsy. Now are we?”

“No, Bertie,” Pinky said, “we are not.”

“Under hawklike supervision,” Bertie added, “if Sergeant Philpott doesn’t mind my mentioning it.”