“That’s what we’ve come for.”

Panty stood squarely facing him. Upon her stained face there grew, almost furtively, a strange expression. It was compounded, he thought, of the look of a normal child about to impart a secret and of something less familiar, more disquieting.

“Here!” she said. “I want to tell you something. Not him. You.”

She drew Alleyn away, and with a sidelong glance pulled him down until she could hook her arm about his neck. He waited, feeling her breath uncomfortably in his ear.

“What is it?”

The whispering was disembodied but unexpectedly clear. “We’ve got,” it said, “a murderer in our family.”

When he drew back and looked at her she was smiling nervously.

i

So accurate and lively were Troy’s drawings that Alleyn recognized Desdemona Ancred as soon as she appeared on the top step of the third terrace and looked down upon the group, doubtless a curious one, made by himself, Panty and Fox. Indeed, as she paused, she struck precisely the attitude, histrionic and grandiose, with which Troy had invested her caricature.

“Ah!” said Dessy richly. “Panty! At last!”

She held out her hand towards Panty and at the same time looked frankly at Alleyn. “How do you do?” she said. “Are you on your way up? Has this terrible young person waylaid you? Shall I introduce myself?”

“Miss Ancred?” Alleyn said.

“He’s Mrs. Alleyn’s husband,” Panty said. “We don’t much want you, thank you, Aunt Dessy.”

Dessy was in the act of advancing with poise down the steps. Her smile remained fixed on her face. Perhaps she halted for a fraction of time in her stride. The next second her hand was in his, and she was gazing with embarrassing intensity into his eyes.

“I’m so glad you’ve come,” she said in her deepest voice. “So glad! We are terribly, terribly distressed. My brother has told you, I know.” She pressed his hand, released it, and looked at Fox.

“Inspector Fox,” said Alleyn. Desdemona was tragically gracious.

They turned to climb the steps. Panty gave a threatening wail.

“You,” said her aunt, “had better run home as fast as you can. Miss Able’s been looking everywhere for you. What have you been doing, Panty? You’re covered in earth.”

Immediately they were confronted with another scene. Panty repeated her former performance, roaring out strange threats against her family, lamenting the cat Carabbas, and protesting that she had not infected him.

“Really, it’s too ridiculous,” Dessy said in a loud aside to Alleyn. “Not that we didn’t all feel it. Poor Carabbas! And my father so attached always. But honestly, it was a menace to all our healths. Ringworm, beyond a shadow of doubt. Fur coming out in handfuls. Obviously it had given them the disease in the first instance. We did perfectly right to have it destroyed. Come on, Panty.”

By this time they had reached the top terrace, with Panty waddling lamentably behind them. Here they were met by Miss Caroline Able, who brightly ejaculated: “Goodness, what a noise!” cast a clear sensible glance at Alleyn and Fox, and removed her still bellowing charge.

“I’m so distressed,” Desdemona cried, “that you should have had this reception. Honestly, poor Panty is simply beyond everything. Nobody loves children more than I do, but she’s got such a difficult nature. And in a house of tragedy, when one’s nerves and emotions are lacerated—”

She gazed into his eyes, made a small helpless gesture, and finally ushered them into the hall. Alleyn glanced quickly at the space under the gallery, but it was still untenanted.

“I’ll tell my sister and my sister-in-law,” Dessy began, but Alleyn interrupted her. “If we might just have a word with you first,” he said. And by Dessy’s manner, at once portentous and dignified, he knew that this suggestion was not unpleasing to her. She led them to the small sitting-room where Troy had found Sonia Orrincourt and Cedric giggling together on the sofa. Desdemona placed herself on this sofa. She sat down, Alleyn noticed, quite beautifully; not glancing at her objective, but sinking on it in one movement and then elegantly disposing her arms.

“I expect,” he began, “that your brother has explained the official attitude to this kind of situation. We’re obliged to make all sorts of inquiries before we can take any further action.”

“I see,” said Desdemona, nodding owlishly. “Yes, I see. Go on.”

“To put it baldly, do you yourself think there is any truth in the suggestion made by the anonymous letter-writer?”

Desdemona pressed the palms of her hands carefully against her eyes. “If I could dismiss it,” she cried. “If I could!”

“You have no idea, I suppose, who could have written the letters?” She shook her head. Alleyn wondered if she had glanced at him through her fingers.

“Have any of you been up to London since your father’s funeral?”

“How frightful!” she said, dropping her hands and gazing at him. “I was afraid of this. How frightful!”

“What?”

“You think one of us wrote the letter? Someone at Ancreton?”

“Well, really,” said Alleyn, stilling his exasperation, “it’s not a preposterous conjecture, is it?”

“No, no. I suppose not. But what a disturbing thought.”

“Well, did any of you go to London—”

“Let me think, let me think,” Desdemona muttered, again covering her eyes. “In the evening. After we had — had — after Papa’s funeral, and after Mr. Rattisbon had—“ She made another little helpless gesture.

“—had read the Will?” Alleyn suggested.

“Yes. That evening, by the seven-thirty. Thomas and Jenetta (my sister-in-law) and Fenella (her daughter) and Paul (my nephew, Paul Kentish) all went up to London.”

“And returned? When?”

“Not at all. Jenetta doesn’t live here and Fenella and Paul, because of — However, Fenella has joined her mother in a flat and I think Paul’s staying with them. My brother Thomas, as you know, lives in London.”

“And nobody else has left Ancreton?”

Yes, it seemed that the following day Millamant and Cedric and Desdemona herself had gone up to London by the early morning train. There was a certain amount of business to be done. They returned in the evening. It was by that evening’s post, the Wednesday’s, Alleyn reflected, that the anonymous letter reached the Yard. He found by dint of cautious questioning that they had all separated in London and gone their several ways to meet in the evening train.

“And Miss Orrincourt?” Alleyn asked.

“I’m afraid,” said Desdemona grandly, “that I’ve really no knowledge at all of Miss Orrincourt’s movements. She was away all day yesterday; I imagine in London.”

“She’s staying on here?”

“You may well look astonished,” said Desdemona, though Alleyn, to his belief, had looked nothing of the sort. “After everything, Mr. Alleyn. After working against us with Papa! After humiliating and wounding us in every possible way. In the teeth, you might say, of the Family’s feelings, she stays on. T’uh!”

“Does Sir Cedric—?”

“Cedric,” said Desdemona, “is now the head of the Family, but I have no hesitation in saying that I think his attitude to a good many things inexplicable and revolting. Particularly where Sonia Orrincourt (you’ll never get me to believe she was born Orrincourt) is concerned. What he’s up to, what both of them— However!”

Alleyn did not press for an exposition of Cedric’s behaviour. At the moment he was fascinated by Desdemona’s. On the wall opposite her hung a looking-glass in a Georgian frame. He saw that Desdemona was keeping an eye on herself. Even as she moved her palms from before her eyes, her fingers touched her hair and she slightly turned her head while her abstracted yet watchful gaze noted, he thought, the effect. And as often as she directed her melting glance upon him, so often did it return to the mirror to affirm with a satisfaction barely veiled its own limpid quality. He felt as if he interviewed a mannequin.