“Who—” Leonard began and pulled himself together. “Look,” he said, “have you been talking to other people?”

“Oh, yes, several.”

“To him?” Leonard demanded. “To Cartell?”

There was a long pause.

“No,” Alleyn said. “Not to him.”

“Then who — Here!” Leonard ejaculated. “There’s something funny about all this. What is it?”

“I’ll answer that one,” Alleyn said, “when you tell me what you did with Mr. Period’s cigarette case. Now don’t,” he went on, raising a finger, “say you don’t know anything about it I’ve seen the dining-room window. It can’t be opened from the outside. It was shut during luncheon. You and Miss Ralston examined the case by the window and left it on the sill. No one else was near the window. When the man came in to clear, the window was open and the case had gone.”

“So he says.”

“So he says, and I believe him.”

“Pardon me if I seem to be teaching you your job,” Leonard said, “but if I was going to pinch this dreary old bit of tat, why would I open the window? Why not put it in my pocket there and then?”

“Because you would then quite obviously be the thief, Mr. Leiss. If you or Miss Ralston left it on the sill and returned by way of the garden path—”

“How the hell—” Leonard began and then changed his mind. “I don’t accept that,” he said. “I resent it, in fact.”

“Did you smoke any of Mr. Period’s cigarettes?”

“Only one, thank you very much. Turkish muck.”

“Did Miss Ralston?”

“Same story. Now, look,” Leonard began with a sort of spurious candour. “There’s such a thing as collusion, isn’t there? We left this morsel of antiquery on the sill. All right. This man — Alfred Whathaveyou — opens the window. The workmen in the lane get the office from him and it’s all as sweet as kiss-your-hand.”

“And would you suggest that we search the men in the lane?”

“Why not? Do no harm, would it?”

“We might even catch them handing the case round after elevenses?”

“That’s right,” Leonard said coolly. “You might at that. Or, they might have cached it on the spot. You can search this room, or me or my car or my girlfriend. Only too pleased. The innocent don’t have anything to hide, do they?” asked Leonard.

“Nor do the guilty, when they’ve dumped the evidence.”

Leonard ran the tip of his tongue over his lips. “Fair enough,” he said. “So what?”

“Mr. Leiss,” Alleyn said, “the cigarette case has been found.”

A second flickered past before Leonard, in a tone of righteous astonishment said: “Found! Well, I ask you! Found! So why come at me? Where?”

“In my opinion, exactly where you dropped it. Down the drain.”

The door was thrust open. On the far side of the screen a feminine voice said: “Sorry, darling, but you’ll have to rouse up.” The door was shut. “We are in a spot of bother,” the voice continued as its owner came round the screen. “Old Cartell, dead as a doornail and down the drain!”

When Moppett saw Alleyn she clapped her hands to her mouth and eyed him over the top.

“I’m terribly sorry,” she said. “Auntie Con thought you’d gone.”

She was a dishevelled figure, half saved by her youth and held together in a négligé that was as unfresh as it was elaborate. “Isn’t it frightful?” she said. “Poor Uncle Hal! I can’t believe it!”

Either she was less perturbed than Leonard or several times tougher. He had turned a very ill colour and had jerked cigarette ash across his chest.

“What the hell are you talking about?” he said.

“Didn’t you know?” Moppett exclaimed, and then to Alleyn, “Haven’t you told him?”

“Miss Ralston,” Alleyn said, “you have saved me the trouble. It is Miss Ralston, isn’t it?”

“That’s right. Sorry,” Moppett went on after a moment, “if I’m interupting something. I’ll sweep myself out, shall I? See you, ducks,” she added in Cockney to Leonard.

“Don’t go, if you please,” said Alleyn. “You may be able to help us. Can you tell me where you and Mr. Leiss lost Mr. Period’s cigarette case?”

“No, she can’t,” Leonard intervened. “Because we didn’t. We never had it. We don’t know anything about it.”

Moppett opened her eyes very wide and her mouth slightly. She turned in fairly convincing bewilderment from Leonard to Alleyn.

“I don’t understand,” she said. “P.P.’s cigarette case? Do you mean the old one he showed us when we lunched with him?”

“Yes,” Alleyn agreed. “That’s the one I mean.”

“Lenny, darling, what did happen to it, do you remember? I know! We left it on the window sill. Didn’t we? In the dining-room?”

“O.K., O.K., like I’ve been telling the Chief Godal-mighty High Commissioner,” Leonard said and behind his alarm, his fluctuating style and his near-Americanisms, there flashed up an unrepentant barrow-boy. “So now it’s been found. So what?”

“It’s been found,” Alleyn said, “in the open drain a few inches from Mr. Cartell’s body.”

Leonard seemed to retreat into himself. It was as if he shortened and compressed his defenses.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. He shot a glance at Moppett. “That’s a very nasty suggestion, isn’t it? I don’t get the picture.”

“The picture will emerge in due course. A minute or two ago,” Alleyn said, “you told me I was welcome to search this room. Do you hold to that?”

Leonard went through the pantomime of inspecting his fingernails but gave it up on finding his hands were unsteady.

“Naturally,” he murmured. “Like I said. Nothing to hide.”

“Good. Please don’t go, Miss Ralston,” Alleyn continued as Moppett showed some sign of doing so. “I shan’t be long.”

He had moved over to the wardrobe and opened the door when he felt a touch on his arm. He turned and there was Moppett, smelling of scent, hair and bed, gazing into his face, unmistakably palpitating.

“I won’t go, of course,” she said opening her eyes very wide, “if you don’t want me to, but you can see, can’t you, that I’m not actually dressed for the prevailing climate? It’s a trifle chilly, this morning, isn’t it?”

“I’m sure Mr. Leiss will lend you his dressing-gown.”

It was a brocade and velvet affair and lay across the foot of the bed. She put it on.

“Give us a fag, ducks,” she said to Leonard.

“Help yourself.”

She reached for his case. “It’s not one of those…?” she began and then stopped short. “Fanks, ducks,” she said and lit a cigarette, lounging across the bed.

The room grew redolent of Virginian tobacco.

The wardrobe doors were lined with looking-glass. In them Alleyn caught a momentary glimpse of Moppett leaning urgently towards Leonard and of Leonard baring his teeth at her. He mouthed something and closed his hand over her wrist. The cigarette quivered between her fingers. Leonard turned his head as Alleyn moved the door and their images swung out of sight.

Alleyn’s fingers slid into the pockets of Leonard’s checked suit, dinner suit and camel’s-hair overcoat. They discovered three greasy combs, a pair of wash-leather gloves, a membership card from a Soho club called La Hacienda, a handkerchief, loose change, a pocketbook and finally, in the evening trousers and the overcoat, the object of their search: strands of cigarette tobacco. He withdrew a thread and sniffed at it. Turkish. The hinges of Mr. Period’s case, he had noticed, were a bit loose.

He came out from behind the wardrobe door with the garments in question over his arm. Moppett, who now had her feet up, exclaimed with a fair show of gaitey: “Look, Face, he’s going to valet you.”

Alleyn said: “I’d like to borrow these things for the moment. I’ll give you a receipt, of course.”

“Like hell you will,” Leonard ejaculated.

“If you object, I can apply for a search warrant”

“Darling, don’t be bloody-minded,” Moppett said. “After all, what does it matter?”

“It’s the principle of the thing,” Leonard mumbled through bleached lips. “That’s what I object to. People break in without a word of warning and start talking about bodies and — and—”