Fox’s voice came through the receiver.

“Hullo, sir?”

“Hullo, Fox. Have you seen the room where he telephoned to me?”

“Yes. It’s a room on the top landing. One of Dimitri’s waiters saw him go in. The room hasn’t been touched.”

“Right. Anything else?”

“Nothing much. The house is pretty well as it was when the guests left. You saw to that, sir.”

“Is Dimitri there?”

“No.”

“Get him, Fox. I’ll see him at the Yard at twelve o’clock. That’ll do him for the moment. Tell Bailey to go all over the telephone room for prints. We’ve got to find out who interrupted that call to the Yard. And, Fox—”

“Sir?”

“Can you come round here? I’d like a word with you.”

“I’ll be there.”

“Thank you,” said Alleyn, and hung up the receiver.

He looked again at the document he had found in the central drawer of Lord Robert’s desk. It was his will. A very simple little will. After one or two legacies he left all his possessions and the life interest on £40,000 to his sister, Lady Mildred Potter, to revert to her son on her death and the remainder of his estate, £20,000, to that same son, his nephew, Donald Potter. The will was dated January 1st of that year.

“His good deed for the New Year,” thought Alleyn.

He looked at the two photographs in leather frames that stood on Lord Robert’s desk. One was of Lady Mildred Potter in the presentation dress of her girlhood. Mildred had been rather pretty in those days. The other was of a young man of about twenty. Alleyn noted the short Gospell nose and wide-set eyes. The mouth was pleasant and weak, the chin one of those jutting affairs that look determined and are too often merely obstinate. It was rather an attractive face. Donald had written his name across the corner with the date, January 1st.

“I hope to God,” thought Alleyn, “that he can give a good account of himself.”

“Good morning,” said a voice from the doorway.

He swung round in his chair and saw Agatha Troy. She was dressed in green and had a little velvet cap on her dark head and green gloves on her hands.

“Troy!”

“I came in to see if there was anything I could do for Mildred.”

“You didn’t know I was here?”

“Not till she told me. She asked me to see if you had everything you wanted.”

“Everything I wanted,” repeated Alleyn.

“If you have,” said Troy, “that’s all right. I won’t interrupt.”

“Please,” said Alleyn, “could you not go just for a second?”

“What is it?”

“Nothing. I mean, I’ve no excuse for asking you to stay, unless, if you will forgive me, the excuse of wanting to look at you and listen for a moment to your voice.” He held up his hand. “No more than that. You liked Bunchy and so did I. He talked about you the last time I saw him.”

“A few hours ago,” said Troy. “I was dancing with him.”

Alleyn moved to the tall windows… They looked out over the charming little garden to the Chelsea reaches of the Thames.

“A few hours ago” — he repeated her words slowly — “the river was breathing mist. The air was threaded with mist and as cold as the grave. That was before dawn broke. It was beginning to get light when I saw him. And look at it now. Not a cloud. The damned river’s positively sparkling in the sunlight. Come here, Troy.”

She stood beside him.

“Look down there into the street. Through the side window. At half-past three this morning the river mist lay like a pall along Cheyne Walk. If anybody was awake at that mongrel hour or abroad in the deserted streets they would have heard a taxi come along Cheyne Walk and stop outside this gate. If anybody in this house had had the curiosity to look out of one of the top windows they would have seen the door of the taxi open and a quaint figure in a cloak and wide-brimmed hat get out.”

“What do you mean? He got out?”

“The watcher would have seen this figure wave a gloved hand and heard him call to the driver in a shrill voice: “Sixty-three Jobbers Row, Queens Gate.” He would have seen the taxi drive away into the mist — and then — what? What did the figure do? Did it run like a grotesque with flapping cloak towards the river to be swallowed up in vapour? Or did it walk off sedately into Chelsea? Did it wait for a moment, staring after the taxi? Did Bunchy’s murderer pull off his cloak, fold it and walk away with it over his arm? Did he hide his own tall hat under the cloak before he got out of the taxi, and afterwards change back into it? And where are Bunchy’s cloak and hat, Troy? Where are they?”

“What did the taxi-driver say?” asked Troy. “There’s nothing coherent in the papers. I don’t understand.”

“I’ll tell you. Fox will be here soon. Before he comes I can allow myself a few minutes to unload my mind, if you’ll let me. I’ve done that before — once — haven’t I?”

“Yes,” murmured Troy. “Once.”

“There is nobody in the world who can listen as you can. I wish I had something better to tell you. Well, here it is. The taxi-driver brought Bunchy to the Yard at four o’clock this morning, saying he was murdered. This was his story. He picked Bunchy up at three-thirty some two hundred yards from the doors of Marsdon House. There was a shortage of taxis and we suppose Bunchy had walked so far, hoping to pick one up in a side street, when this fellow came along. The unnatural mist that hung over London last night was thick in Belgrave Square. As the taximan drove towards Bunchy he saw another figure in an overcoat and top-hat loom through the mist and stand beside him. They appeared to speak together. Bunchy held up his stick. The cabby knew him by sight and addressed him:

“ ‘ ’Morning, m’lord. Two hundred Cheyne Walk?”

“ ‘Please,’ said Bunchy.

“The two men got into the taxi. The cabby never had a clear view of the second man. He had his back turned as the taxi approached and when it stopped he stood towards the rear in shadow. Before the door was slammed the cabby heard Bunchy say: ‘You can take him on.’ The cabby drove to Cheyne Walk by way of Chesham Place, Cliveden Place, Lower Sloane Street and Chelsea Hospital and across Tite Street. He says it took about twelve minutes. He stopped here at Bunchy’s gate and in a few moments Lord Robert, as he supposed him to be, got out and slammed the door. A voice squeaked through a muffler: ‘Sixty-three Jobbers Row, Queens Gate,’ and the cabby drove away. He arrived at Jobbers Row ten minutes later, waited for his fare to get out and at last got out himself and opened the door. He found Bunchy.”

Alleyn waited for a moment, looked gravely at Troy’s white face. She said:

“There was no doubt—”

“None. The cabby is an obstinate, opinionated, cantankerous old oddity, but he’s no fool. He satisfied himself. He explained that he once drove an ambulance and knew certain,things. He headed as far as he could for the Yard. A sergeant saw him; saw everything; made sure it was — what it was, and got me. I made sure, too.”

“What had been done to Bunchy?”

“You want to know? Yes, of course you do. You’re too intelligent to nurse your sensibilities.”

“Mildred will ask me about it. What happened?”

“We think he was struck on the temple, stunned and then suffocated,” said Alleyn, without emphasis. “We shall know more when the doctors have finished.”

“Struck?”

“Yes. With something that had a pretty sharp edge. About as sharp as the back of a thick knife-blade.”

“Did he suffer?”

“Not very much. Hardly at all. He wouldn’t know what happened.”

“His heart was weak,” said Troy suddenly.

“His heart? Are you sure of that?”

“Mildred told me the other day. She tried to persuade him to see a specialist.”

“I wonder,” said Alleyn, “if that made it easier — for both of them.”

Troy said:

“I haven’t seen you look like that before.”

“What do you mean, Troy?”