“No?”

“I think he’s careless. I thought at the time he ought to have asked more questions about my father-in-law’s death. He’s too much wrapped up in his horse racing and bridge and not interested enough in his patients. However,” she added, with a short laugh, “my father-in-law liked him well enough to leave more to him than to some of his own flesh and blood.”

“About the medicine,” Alleyn prompted.

“She wouldn’t have interfered with it. Why should she use it when she had the Thermos in her own hands?”

“Have you any idea where she could have found the tin of ratbane?”

“She complained of rats when she first came here. I asked Barker to set poison and told him there was a tin in the storeroom. She made a great outcry and said she had a horror of poison.”

Alleyn glanced at Fox, who instantly looked extremely bland.

“So,” Milly went on, “I told Barker to set traps. When we wanted rat-bane, weeks afterwards, for Bracegirdle, the tin had gone. It was an unopened tin, to the best of my knowledge. It had been in the store-room for years.”

“It must have been an old brand,” Alleyn agreed. “I don’t think arsenical rat-bane is much used nowadays.”

He stood up and Fox rose with him. “I think that’s all,” he said.

“No,” said Millamant strongly, “it’s not all. I want to know what the woman has said about my son.”

“She suggested they were partners in the practical jokes and he admitted it.”

“I warn you,” she said, and for the first time her voice was unsteady. “I warn you, she’s trying to victimise him. She’s worked on his kindness and good nature and his love of fun. I warn you—”

The door at the far end of the room opened and Cedric looked in. His mother’s back was turned to him, and, unconscious of his presence, she went on talking. Her shaking voice repeated over and over again that he had been victimized. Cedric’s gaze moved from her to Alleyn, who was watching him. He sketched a brief grimace, deprecating, rueful, but his lips were colourless and the effect was of a distortion. He came in and shut the door with great delicacy. He carried a much be-labelled suitcase, presumably Miss Orrincourt’s, which, after a further grimace at Alleyn, he placed behind a chair. He then minced across the carpet.

“Darling Milly,” he said, and his hands closed on his mother’s shoulders. She gave a startled cry. “There now! I made you jump. So sorry.”

Millamant covered his hands with her own. He waited for a moment, submissive to her restless and possessive touch. “What is it, Milly?” he asked. “Who’s been victimising Little Me? Is it Sonia?”

“Ceddie?

“I’ve been such a goose, you can’t think. I’ve come to ‘fess up,’ like a good boy,” he said nauseatingly, and slid round to his familiar position on the floor, leaning against her knees. She held him there, strongly.

“Mr. Alleyn,” Cedric began, opening his eyes very wide, “I couldn’t be more sorry about rushing away just now after Aunt Pauline. Really, it was too stupid. But one does like to tell people things in one’s own way, and there she was, huffing and puffing and going on as if I’d been trying to conceal some dire skeleton in my, I assure you, too drearily barren cupboard.”

Alleyn waited.

“You see — (Milly, my sweet, this is going to be a faint shock to you, but never mind) — you see, Mr. Alleyn, there’s been a — what shall I call it? — a — well, an understanding, of sorts, between Sonia and me. It only really developed quite lately. After dearest Mrs. Alleyn came here. She seems to have noticed quite a number of things; perhaps she noticed that.”

“If I understand you,” Alleyn said, “she, I am sure, did not.”

“Really?”

“Are you trying to tell me why you visited Miss Orrincourt’s rooms on the night of your grandfather’s death?”

“Well,” Cedric muttered petulantly, “after Aunt Pauline’s announcement — and, by the way, she gleaned her information through a nocturnal visit to the archaic offices at the end of the passage — after that there seems to be nothing for it but an elaborate cleaning of the breast, does there?”

“Cedric,” Millamant said, “what has this woman done to you?”

“My sweet, nothing, thank God. I’m trying to tell you. She really is too beautiful, Mr. Alleyn, don’t you think? I know you didn’t like her, Milly dear, and how right you seem to have been. But I really was quite intrigued and she was so bored and it was only the teeniest flutter, truly. I merely popped in on my way to bed and had a good giggle with her about the frightful doings down below.”

“Incidentally,” Alleyn suggested, “you may have hoped to hear the latest news about Sir Henry’s Will.”

“Well, that among other things. You see, I did rather wonder if the flying cow hadn’t been sort of once too often, as it were. Sonia did it before dinner, you know. And then at the dinner the Old Person announced a Will that was really quite satisfactory from both our points of view, and with the insufferable Panty not even a starter, one rather wished Sonia had left well alone.”

“Cedric,” said his mother suddenly, “I don’t think, dear, you should go on. Mr. Alleyn won’t understand. Stop.”

“But, Milly, my sweet, don’t you see dear old Pauline has already planted a horrid little seed of suspicion, and one simply must tweak it up before it sprouts. Mustn’t one, Mr. Alleyn?”

“I think,” Alleyn said, “you’ll be well advised to make a complete statement.”

“There! Now, where was I? Oh, yes. Now, all would have been well if Carol Able, who is so scientific and ‘un-thing’ that she’s a sort of monster, hadn’t made out a water-tight alibi for that septic child. This, of course, turned the Old Person’s suspicious glare upon all of us equally, and so he wrote the second Will and so we were all done in the eye except Sonia. And to be quite frank, Milly and Mr. Alleyn, I should so like to have it settled whether she’s a murderess or not, rather quickly.”

“Of course she is,” Millamant said.

“Yes, but are you positive? It really is of mountainous significance for me.”

“What do you mean, Cedric? I don’t understand—”

“Well — well, never mind.”

“I think I know what Sir Cedric means,” Alleyn said. “Isn’t it a question of marriage at some time in the future with Miss Orrincourt?”

Millamant, with a tightening of her hold on Cedric’s shoulder, said, “No!” loudly and flatly.

“Oh, Milly darling,” he protested, wriggling under her hand, “please let’s be civilised.”

“It’s all nonsense,” she said. “Tell him it’s all nonsense. A disgusting idea! Tell him.”

“What’s the use when Sonia will certainly tell him something else?” He appealed to Alleyn. “You do understand, don’t you? I mean, one can’t deny she’s decorative and in a way it would have been quite fun. Don’t you think it would have worked, Mr. Alleyn? I do.”

His mother again began to protest. He freed himself with ugly petulance and scrambled to his feet. “You’re idiotic, Milly. What’s the good of hiding things?”

“You’ll do yourself harm.”

“What harm? I’m in the same position, after all, as you. I don’t know the truth about Sonia but I want to find out.” He turned to Alleyn with a smile. “When I saw her that night she told me about the new Will. I knew then that if he died I’d be practically ruined. There’s no collaboration where I’m concerned, Mr. Alleyn. I didn’t murder the Old Person. Pas si bête!”

ii

“ ‘Pas si bête,’ ” Fox quoted as they made their way to the school wing. “Meaning, ‘not such a fool.’ I shouldn’t say he was, either, would you, Mr. Alleyn?”

“Oh, no. There are no flies on the egregious Cedric. But what a cold-blooded little worm it is, Fox! Grandpapa dies, leaving him encumbered with a large unwanted estate and an insufficient income to keep it up. Grandpapa, on the other hand, dies leaving his extremely dubious fiancée a fortune. What more simple than for the financially embarrassed Cedric to marry the opulent Miss O.? I could kick that young man,” said Alleyn thoughtfully, “in fourteen completely different positions and still feel half-starved.”