“Perhaps they weren’t all like you.”

“Sonia,” said Troy, “that will do. If you boys are going to make your experiment, you’d better hurry up. We start again in five minutes.”

In the boards of the throne they found a crack that passed through the right spot. Hatchett slid the thin tip of the knife into it from underneath and shoved. By tapping the hilt of the dagger with an easel ledge, he forced the widening blade upwards through the crack. Then he let the throne back on to the floor. The blade projected wickedly through the blue chalk cross that marked the plot of Sonia’s heart on the throne. Basil Pilgrim took the drape, laid it across the cushion, pulled it in taut folds down to the throne, and pinned it there.

“You see, the point of the knife is lower than the top of the cushion,” he said. “It doesn’t show under the drape.”

“What did I tell you?” said Hatchett.

Garcia strolled over and joined the group.

“Go into your pose, Sonia,” he said with a grin.

Sonia shuddered.

“Don’t,” she said.

“I wonder if the tip would show under the left breast,” murmured Malmsley. “Rather amusing to have it in the drawing. With a cast shadow and a thin trickle of blood. Keep the whole thing black and white except for the little scarlet thread. After all, it is melodrama.”

“Evidently,” grunted Garcia.

“The point of suspension for the drape would have to be higher,” said Troy. “It must be higher than the tip of the blade. You could do it. If your story was a modern detective novel, Malmsley, you could do a drawing of the knife as it is now.”

Malmsley smiled and began to sketch on the edge of his paper. Valmai Seacliff leant over him, her hands on his shoulders. Hatchett, Ormerin and Pilgrim stood round her, Pilgrim with his arm across her shoulder. Phillida Lee hovered on the outskirts of the little group. Troy, looking vaguely round the studio, said to herself that her worst forebodings were likely to be realised. Watt Hatchett was already at loggerheads with Malmsley and the model. Valmai was at her Cleopatra game, and there was Sonia in a corner with Garcia. Something in their faces caught Troy’s attention. What the devil were they up to? Garcia’s eyes were on the group round Malmsley. A curious smile lifted one corner of his mouth, and on Sonia’s face, turned to him, the smile was reflected.

“You’ll have to get that thing out now, Hatchett,” said Troy.

It took a lot of working and tugging to do this, but at last the knife was pulled out, the throne put back, and Sonia, with many complaints, took the pose again.

“Over more on the right shoulder,” said Katti Bostock.

Troy thrust the shoulder down. The drape fell into folds round the figure.

“Ow!” said Sonia.

“That is when the dagger goes in,” said Malmsley.

“Don’t — you’ll make me sick,” said Sonia.

Garcia gave a little chuckle.

“Right through the ribs and coming out under the left breast,” murmured Malmsley.

“Shut up!”

“Spitted like a little chicken.”

Sonia raised her head.

“I wouldn’t be too damn’ funny, Mr. Malmsley,” she said. “Where do you get your ideas from, I wonder? Books? Or pictures?”

Malmsley’s brush slipped from his fingers to the paper, leaving a trace of paint. He looked fixedly at Sonia, and then began to dab his drawing with a sponge. Sonia laughed.

“For God’s sake,” said Katti Bostock, “let’s get the pose.”

“Quiet!” said Troy, and was obeyed. She set the pose, referring to the canvases. “Now get down to it, all of you. The Phoenix Group Show opens on the 16th. I suppose most of us want to go up to London for it. Very well, I’ll give the servants a holiday that week-end, and we’ll start work again on Monday.”

“If this thing goes decently,” said Katti, “I want to put it in for the Group. It it’s not done, it’ll do for B. House next year.”

“I take it,” said Troy, “you’ll all want to go up for the Group’s private view?”

“I don’t,” said Garcia. “I’ll be pushing off for my holiday about then.”

“What about us?” asked Valmai Seacliff of Basil Pilgrim.

“What do you think, darling?”

“ ‘Us?’ ” said Troy. “ ‘Darling’? What’s all this?”

“We may as well tell them, Basil,” said Valmai sweetly. “Don’t faint, anybody. We got engaged last night.”

Lady Alleyn knelt back on her gardening-mat and looked up at her son.

“I think we have done enough weeding for to-day, darling. You bustle off with that barrow-load and then we’ll go indoors and have a glass of sherry and a chat. We’ve earned it.”

Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn obediently trundled off down the path, tipped his barrow-load on the smudge fire, mopped his brow and went indoors for a bath. Half an hour later he joined his mother in the drawing-room.

“Come up to the fire, darling. There’s the sherry. It’s a bottle of the very precious for our last evening.”

“Ma’am,” said Alleyn, “you are the perfect woman.”

“No, only the perfect mamma. I flatter myself I am a very good parent. You look charming in a dinner jacket, Roderick. I wish your brother had some of your finish. George always looks a little too hearty.”

“I like George,” said Alleyn.

“I quite like him, too,” agreed their mother.

“This is really a superlative wine. I wish it wasn’t our last night, though. Three days with the Bathgates, and then my desk, my telephone, the smell of the Yard, and old Fox beaming from ear to ear, bless him. Ah well, I expect I shall quite enjoy it once I’m there.”

“Roderick,” said Lady Alleyn, “why wouldn’t you come to Tatler’s End House with me?”

“For the very good reason, little mum, that I should not have been welcomed.”

“How do you know?”

“Miss Troy doesn’t like me.”

“Nonsense! She’s a very intelligent young woman.”

“Darling!”

“The day I called I suggested she should dine with us while you were here. She accepted.”

“And put us off when the time came.”

“My dear man, she had a perfectly good excuse.”

“Naturally,” said Alleyn. “She is, as you say, a very intelligent young woman.”

Lady Alleyn looked at a portrait head that hung over the mantelpiece.

“She can’t dislike you very much, my dear. That picture gives the lie to your theory.”

“Aesthetic appreciation of a paintable object has nothing to do with personal preferences.”

“Bosh! Don’t talk pretentious nonsense about things you don’t understand.”

Alleyn grinned.

“I think you are being self-conscious and silly,” continued Lady Alleyn grandly.

“It’s the lady that you should be cross about, not me.”

“I’m not cross, Roderick. Give yourself another glass of sherry. No, not for me.”

“Anyway,” said Alleyn, “I’m glad you like the portrait.”

“Did you see much of her in Quebec?”

“Very little, darling. We bowed to each other at mealtimes and had a series of stilted conversations in the lounge. On the last evening she was there I took her to the play.”

“Was that a success?”

“No. We were very polite to each other.”

“Ha!” said Lady Alleyn.

“Mamma,” said Alleyn, “you know I am a detective.” He paused, smiling at her. “You look divine when you blush,” he added.

“Well, Roderick, I shan’t deny that I would like to see you married.”

“She wouldn’t dream of having me, you know. Put the idea out of your head, little mum. I very much doubt if I shall ever have another stilted conversation with Miss Agatha Troy.”

The head parlourmaid came in.

“A telephone call from London for Mr. Roderick, m’lady.”

“From London?” asked Alleyn. “Oh Lord, Clibborn, why didn’t you say I was dead?”

Clibborn smiled the tolerant smile of a well-trained servant, and opened the door.

“Excuse me, please, mamma,” said Alleyn, and went to the telephone.