“I’m glad to hear it,” Caley said wryly.

Alleyn said, “Here goes, then. Conspiracy? Yes. We think there is a conspiracy at work in the Zodiac and we think all but one of the passengers is involved. Murder? Yes. We think one of you is a murderer and hope to prove it. His name? Foljambe, alias the Jampot. At present, however, known by the name of another person. And his record? International bad-lot with at least five homicides to his discredit.”

The silence that followed was broken by Pollock. “You must be barmy,” he said.

“Conspiracy,” Alleyn went on. “Briefly, it involves the painting by you, Mr Pollock, of extremely accomplished Constable forgeries. The general idea, we think, went something like this. You made the forgeries. Your young friends on the motor-bike, working under Foljambe’s orders, were to plant them about this countryside where Constable once painted. The general principle of ‘salting’ the non-existent mine. The first discovery by Mr and Miss Hewson (if that is their name) in Bagg’s yard was to be given exactly the right amount of publicity. If necessary the circumstances surrounding the lucky find would be authenticated by Bagg himself, by my wife and Miss Rickerby-Carrick and the only other unimplicated passenger. There was to be an immediate bogus hunt throughout the countryside by: a) Mr Lazenby better known in the Antipodes, we incline to believe, as Dinky Dickson: b) Mr and Miss Hewson or Ed and Sally-Lou Moran as the case may be, and c)—ineffable cheek—by you yourself, Mr Pollock, in hot pursuit of your own forgeries.”

“You got to be dreaming,” said Mr Pollock.

“The result of this treasure-hunt would be — surprise! surprise! — a tidy haul of ‘Constables’ and a general melting away of the conspirators to sell them in the highest market. The whole operation was, we believe, in the nature of a trial run, observed by the key figures and designed for expansion, with appropriate modifications, into world-wide operations.”

“All of this,” said Lazenby breathlessly, “is untrue. It is wickedly and scandalously untrue.”

“Meanwhile,” Alleyn continued, “the terrain would have been thoroughly explored for the subsequent disposal (or we don’t know anything about our Jampot), of hard drugs by means of what is laughingly known in the racket as aerial top-dressing. The collectors would be at large among a swarm of Constable-seekers and would be accepted by the locals, with however marked a degree of exasperation, as such.”

“How do you like this fella? Do we have to sit around and take this?” Mr Hewson asked of no one in particular.

“You haven’t got much choice, have you?” Caley Bard said. And to Alleyn: “Go on, please.”

“Almost from the first things went askew. I again draw your attention to Mr K. G. Z. Andropulos who was to be a passenger in Cabin 7. He was a bit of wreckage from Greece who had a picture-dealing shop in Soho which may have been intended as a dispersal point for some of the forgeries. He turned nark on Foljambe, madly tried a spot of blackmail, and was murdered, exactly in the same way as the women. By the Jampot himself, about thirty-eight hours before he embarked in the Zodiac.”

The three men broke into simultaneous ejaculations. Alleyn raised his hand. “We’ll come to alibis,” he said, “in due course. They have been checked.”

“All I can say,” Caley said, “is Thank God and perhaps I’m being premature, at that.”

“Yes, and perhaps you bloody well are,” Pollock burst out. “Sitting there, like Jacky. How do we know—”

“You don’t,” Caley said. “So shut up.” He turned to Alleyn. “But about this—about Miss Hewson. Why, to begin with, are you so sure there’s been foul play?”

Alleyn said: “We are waiting for an official medical opinion. In the meantime, since we have a doctor among us, I think I shall ask him to describe the post-mortem appearances of suffocation by earth and gravel. As opposed to those following an attack from behind involving abrupt and violent pressure on the carotid arteries.”

“Ah no!” Caley cried out. “Alleyn, I mean — surely!” He looked at Hewson who leant on the table, his face in his hands. “I mean,” Caley repeated. “I mean — well — there are decencies.”

“As far as possible,” Alleyn rejoined, “we try to observe them. Mr Hewson will be asked to identify. He may prefer to know, if he doesn’t know already, what to expect.”

“Know!” Hewson sobbed behind his fingers. “Know. My God, how should I know!”

“You all want to know, I gather, why we believe Miss Hewson was murdered. Our opinion rests to a considerable extent on post-mortem appearances. Dr Natouche?”

It was a long time since they had heard that voice. He had been there, sitting apart in his splendid gown and scarlet slippers. They had shot uneasy, resentful or curious glances at him but nobody had spoken to him and he had not uttered.

He said: “You have sent for your police consultant. It would be improper for me to give an opinion.”

“Even in the interest of justice?”

“It is not clear to me how justice would be served by my intervention.”

“If you consider for a moment, it may become clear.”

“I think not, Superintendent”

“Will you at least tell us if you would expect to find a difference between post-mortem appearances in these two cases?”

A long silence before Dr Natouche said: “Possibly.”

“In the case of an attack on the carotids you would expect to find external post-mortem marks on the areas attacked?”

“Superintendent, I have told you I prefer not to give an opinion. The external appearances from suffocation vary enormously. I have—” He waited for some seconds and then spoke very strongly. “I have never seen a case of death from a murderous assault on the carotids. My opinion would be valueless,” said Dr Natouche.

Pollock cried out shrilly: “You’d know how to do it, though, wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t you?”

Hewson lowered his hands and stared at Natouche.

“Any medical man,” Natouche said, “would know technically, what death by such means involved. I must decline to discuss it.”

“I don’t like this,” Lazenby said, turning his dark glasses on the doctor. “I don’t like this, at all. It’s not honest. It’s not a fair go. You’ve been asked a straight question, Doctor, and you refuse to give a straight answer.”

“On the contrary.”

“Well,” Alleyn said, “let’s take another look at the situation. Before she left the Zodiac, Miss Hewson was in distress. She was heard by the constable on duty at the lock to scream, to break into a hysterical demonstration and to cry out repeatedly: ‘Let me go. Let me go!’ Is that agreed?”

Hewson said: “Sure! Sure, she was hysterical. Sure, she wanted to escape. What sort of deal had she had for Christ’s sake! Police standing her up like she was involved in this phoney art racket. A corpse fished outa The River and everyone talking about homicide. Sure, she was scared. She was real scared. She was desperate. I didn’t want to leave her up here but she acted like crazy and said why couldn’t I let her alone. So I did. I left her right here in the saloon and I went to bed.”

“You were the last then, to go down?”

“Well — the Padre and Stan and I — we went together.”

“And Dr Natouche? Did he go down?

“No, sir. He went up on deck. He went up soon as Sis began to act nervous. Pretty queer it seemed to me: go out into that doggone fog but that’s what he did and that’s where he went.”

“I would like to get a clear picture, if ‘clear’ is the word, of where you all were and what happened after she was left here in the saloon.”

They all began to speak at once and incontinently stopped. Alleyn looked at Caley Bard.

“Let’s have your version,” he said.

“I wish you luck of it,” Caley rejoined. “For what it’s worth I’ll—well, I’ll have a stab. I’d gone to bed: at least I’d gone to my cabin and undressed and was having a look at some butterflies I caught on the cruise. I heard—” he looked at Lazenby, Hewson and Pollock “—these three come down and go to the loo and their cabins and so on. They all have to go past my door, I being in Cabin 1. They were talking in the passage, I remember. I didn’t notice what they said: I was spreading a specimen I picked up at Crossdyke. Subconsciously though, I suppose I must have recognised their voices.”