“Maddening, that sort of thing. I wonder if we might see Mr. Pilgrim’s room, sir.”

“By George, well see every room in this house,” shouted Captain Pascoe. “By God, we’ll catch them red-handed.”

With this remarkable pronouncement he turned about and made for the door. Alleyn followed him, looked over his shoulder at Fox, raised his left eyebrow, and disappeared.

To Nigel’s surprise, Fox said: “Wait here, Mr. Bathgate, please,” darted out of the room and reappeared in about a minute.

“Stand by that door if you please, Mr. Bathgate,” whispered Fox. “Keep the room clear.”

Nigel stood by the door and Fox, with surprising dexterity and speed, whipped a small wide-necked bottle from his pocket, poured the contents of the tumbler into it, corked it, and wrapped the tumbler in his handkerchief.

“Now, sir. If you’ll take those down to the car and put them in the chief’s case — thank you very much. Quickly does it.”

When Nigel got back he found that Captain Pascoe, accompanied by Alleyn, had returned to the hall and was yelling for his servant. The servant arrived and was damned to heaps. Fox came down. Captain Pascoe suddenly collapsed into an arm-chair, showed signs of drowsiness, and appeared to lose all interest in his visitors. Alleyn spoke to the servant.

“We are police officers and are making a few inquiries about the affair at Bossicote. Will you show us the garage, please?”

“Very good, sir,” said the man stolidly.

“It’s nothing whatever to do with your employer, personally, by the way.”

Captain Pascoe’s servant bestowed a disappointed glance upon his master and led his visitors out by the front door.

“The garage is a step or two down the lane, sir. The house, being old and what they call restored, hasn’t many conveniences.”

“Do you keep early hours here? What time do you get up in the mornings?”

“Breakfast is not till ten, sir. The maids are supposed to get up at seven. It’s more like half-past. The Captain and Mrs. Pascoe breakfast in their rooms, you see, and so do most guests.”

“Did Mr. Pilgrim and Miss Seacliff breakfast in their rooms?”

“Oh yes, sir. There’s the garage, sir.”

He showed them a double garage about two hundred yards down the lane. Captain Pascoe’s Morris Cowley occupied less than half the floor space.

“Ah yes,” said Alleyn. “Plenty of room here. I suppose, now, that Mr. Pilgrim’s car fitted in very comfortably?”

“Oh yes, sir.”

“Nice car, isn’t it?”

“Very nice job, sir. Tiger on petrol, sir.”

“Really? What makes you think that?”

“Well, sir, I asked the gentleman on Saturday morning was she all right for petrol — I’m butler-chauffeur, sir — and he said yes, she was filled up as full as she’d go in Bossicote. Well, sir, I looked at the gauge and she’d eaten up two gallons coming over here. Twelve miles, sir, no more. I looked to see if she was leaking but she wasn’t. Something wrong there, sir, isn’t there?”

“I agree with you,” said Alleyn. “Thank you very much, I think that’s all.”

“Thank you very much indeed, sir,” said the butler-chauffeur, closing his hand gratefully.

Alleyn, Fox and Nigel returned to their car and drove away.

“Get that tumbler, Fox?” asked Alleyn.

“Yes, sir. And the liquid. Had to go down to the car for a bottle.”

“Good enough. What a bit of luck, Fox! You remember the Seacliff told us Mrs. Pascoe was leaving on Saturday and giving the maids a holiday? My golly, what a bit of luck.”

“Do you think that stuff was the melted aspirin Pilgrim doled out for her on Friday night?” asked Nigel.

“That’s my clever little man,” said Alleyn. “I do think so. And if the tumbler has Pilgrim’s prints, and only his, we’ll know.”

“Are you going to have the stuff analysed?”

“Yes. Damn’ quick about it, too, if possible.”

“And what then?”

“Why then,” said Alleyn, “we’ll be within sight of an arrest.”

The analysts’ report on the contents of the tumbler came through at nine-thirty that evening. The fluid contained a solution of Bayer’s Aspirin — approximately three tablets. The glass bore a clear imprint of Basil Pilgrim’s fingers and thumb. When Alleyn had read the analysts’ report he rang up his Assistant Commissioner, had a long talk with him, and then sent for Fox.

“There’s one thing we must make sure of,” he said wearily, “and that’s the position of the light on the figure outside the studio window. Our game with the string wasn’t good enough. We’ll have to get something a bit more positive, Brer Fox.”

“Meaning, sir?”

“Meaning, alas, a trip to Tatler’s End.”

“Now?”

“I’m afraid so. We’ll have a Yard car. It’ll be needed in the morning. Come on.”

So for the last time Alleyn and Fox drove through the night to Tatler’s End House. The Bossicote church clock struck midnight as Fox took up his old position outside the studio window. A fine drizzle was falling, and the lane smelt of leaf-mould and wet grass. The studio lights were on and the blind was drawn down.

“I shall now retire to the shady spot where Ethel and her boy lost themselves in an interlude of modified rapture,” said Alleyn.

He walked down the lane and returned in a few minutes.

“Fox,” he said, “the ray of light that comes through the hole in the blind alights upon your bosom. I think we are on the right track.”

“Looks like it,” Fox agreed. “What do we do now?”

“We spend the rest of the night with my mamma. I’ll ring up the Yard and get the official party to pick us up at Danes Lodge in the morning. Come on.”

“Very good, Mr. Alleyn. Er— ”

“What’s the matter?”

“Well, sir, I was thinking of Miss Troy. It’s going to be a bit unpleasant for her, isn’t it? I was wondering if we couldn’t do something to make it a bit easier.”

“Yes, Fox. That’s rather my idea, too. I think — damn it all, it’s too late to bother her now. Or is it? I’ll ring up from Danes Lodge. Come on.”

They got to Danes Lodge at twelve-thirty, and found Lady Alleyn reading D. H. Lawrence before a roaring fire in her little sitting-room.

“Good evening,” said Lady Alleyn. “I got your message, Roderick. How nice to see you again, Mr. Fox. Come and sit down.”

“I’m just going to the telephone,” said Alleyn. “Won’t be long.”

“All right, darling. Mr. Fox, help yourself to a drink and come and tell me if you have read any of this unhappy fellow’s books.”

Fox put on his spectacles and gravely inspected the outside of The Letters of D. H. Lawrence.

“I can’t say I have, my lady,” he said, “but I seem to remember we cleaned up an exhibition of this Mr. Lawrence’s pictures a year or two ago. Very fashionable show it was.”

“Ah yes. Those pictures. What did you think of them?”

“I don’t exactly know,” said Fox. “They seemed well within the meaning of the act, I must say, but the colours were pretty. You wouldn’t have cared for the subjects, my lady.”

“Shouldn’t I? He seems never to have found his own centre of gravity, poor fellow. Some of these letters are wise and some are charming, and some are really rather tedious. All these negroid deities growling in his interior! One feels sorry for his wife, but she seems to have had the right touch with him. Have you got your drink? That’s right. Are you pleased with your progress in this case?”

“Yes, thank you. It’s coming on nicely.”

“And so you are going to arrest somebody tomorrow morning? I thought as much. One can always tell by my son’s manner when he is going to make an arrest. He gets a pinched look.”

“So does his prisoner, my lady,” said Fox, and was so enraptured with his own pun that he shook from head to foot with amazed chuckles.

“Roderick!” cried Lady Alleyn as her son came in, “Mr. Fox is making nonsense of your mother.”