Vincent and three other men were floundering about in a halfhearted way among broken glass and the dense thicket that invested the site of the old conservatory. They poked and thrust with forks and spades. “But that’s ridiculous,” thought Troy.

She found Hilary downstairs waiting to see her off.

He stared at her. “You look,” he said, “as if somebody had given you a wonderful present. Or made love to you. Or something.”

“And that’s exactly how I feel,” she said.

He was silent for so long and stared so hard that she was obliged to say: “Is anything more the matter?”

“I suppose not,” he said slowly. “I hope not. I was just wondering. However! Watch out for icy patches, won’t you? You can’t miss the turnings. Bon voyage.”

He watched her start up her engine, turned on his heel, and went quickly into the house.

In her walks Troy had always taken paths that led up to the moors: “The Land Beyond the Scarecrow,” she had called it to herself as if it belonged to a children’s story. Now she drove down the long drive that was to become a grand avenue. The bulldozer men were not at work over Christmas. Their half-formed hillock, and the bed for the lake that would reflect it, were covered with snow — the tractors looked ominous and dark under their tarpaulins. Further away stood a copse of bare trees that was evidently a feature of the original estate and beyond this, fields stretching downhill, away from the moors and towards a milder and more humanized landscape. At the end of the drive she crossed a bridge over a rapid brook that Hilary had told her would be developed, further upstream, into water gardens.

A drive of some twelve miles brought her to her destination. The late afternoon sun shone bravely, there was an air of normality and self-containment about the small country town of Downlow. Troy drove along the main street to the station, parked her car, and went through the office to the platform. Here, in the familiar atmosphere of paste, disinfectant and travel posters, Halberds seemed absurd and faintly distasteful.

She was early and walked up and down the platform, partly to keep warm and partly to work off her overstimulated sense of anticipation. Strange notions came into her head. As, for instance, would Cressida in — say — ten years’ time, feel more or less like this if she had been absent from Hilary for three weeks? Was Cressida much in love with Hilary? Did she passionately want to be mistress of Halberds? Judging by those representatives of county families who had rather uneasily attended the party, Cressida was unlikely to find a kindred spirit among them. Perhaps she and Hilary would spend most of their time in their S.W.1 flat, which Troy supposed to be on a pretty lavish scale. Would they take some of their murderers to look after them when they came up to London? Troy found that she felt uneasy about Cressida and obscurely sorry for her.

With a loud clank the signal arm jerked up. A porter and one or two other persons strolled onto the platform, and from down the line came the banshee whistle of the London train.

“Mind? Of course I don’t mind,” Alleyn said. “I thought I should be hanging about the flat waiting for you to come home! Instead of which, here we are, bold as brass, driving somebody else’s car through a Christmas tree landscape and suiting each other down to the ground. What’s wrong with that?”

“I’ve no complaints.”

“In that case you must now tell me what’s up in the Bill-Tasman outfit. You sounded greatly put out this morning.”

“Yes, well… all right. Hold on to your hat and fetch up all your willing suspension of unbelief. You’ll need it.”

“I’ve heard of Bill-Tasman’s experiment with villains for flunkies. Your letter seemed to suggest that it works.”

“That was early days. That was a week ago. I didn’t write again because there wasn’t time. Now, listen.”

“ ‘List, list, O list.’ ”

“Yes, well, it’s an earful.”

“ ‘Speak, I am bound to hear.’ ”

“Rory! Don’t be a detective.”

“Oops! Sorry.”

“Here I go, then.”

Troy had got about a third of the way through her narrative when her husband stopped her.

“I suppose,” he said, “I have to take it that you are not making this up as you go along.”

“I’m not even making the most of my raw material. Which part do you find difficult to absorb?”

“My trouble is quantitative rather than particular, but I find I jib at Aunt Bed. I don’t know why. I suppose she’s not somebody in disguise and camping it up?”

“That really would be a more appropriate theory for Mr. Smith.”

“Oh,” said Alleyn. “I know about your Mr. Smith. The firm of Bill-Tasman and Smith is at the top of the British if not the European antiquarian trade, and Albert Smith, from the police angle, is as pure as the driven snow. We’ve sought their opinions before now in cases of fraud, robbery from collections, and art forgeries. He started as a barrow-boy, he had a flair, and with the aid of Bill-Tasman, Senior, he got to the top. It’s not an unusual story, darling. It’s merely an extreme example. Press on.”

Troy pressed on with mileage and narrative. They reached the signpost for the Vale turn-off and began to climb the lower-reaches of the moors. Patches of snow appeared. In the far distance, Troy thought she recognized the high tor above the Vale.

Alleyn became quieter and quieter. Every now and then he questioned her and once or twice asked her to go over the ground again. She had got as far as the anonymous messages and the booby-trap when she interrupted herself. “Look,” she said. “See those plumes of smoke beyond the trees? We’re nearly there. That’s Halberds.”

“Could you pull up? I’d like to hear the lot while we’re at it.”

“O.K.”

She turned the car on to the verge of the road and stopped the engine. The sky had begun to darken, mist rose from hollows and blurred their windscreen. Rime glittered on a roadside briar.

“You must be starved with cold after Sydney in midsummer.”

“I’m treble-sweatered and quilted. Carry on, my love.”

Ten minutes later Troy said, “And that’s it. When I left, Vincent and some chaps were tramping about with forks and spades in the ruins of the conservatory.”

“Has Bill-Tasman reported to his local police?”

“I don’t think so.”

“He damn’ well ought to.”

“I think he’s holding back for you.”

“Like hell he is!”

“For your advice.”

“Which will be to call up the local station. What else, for pity’s sake? What’s he like, Bill-Tasman? He sounded precious on the telephone.”

“He’s a bit like a good-looking camel. Very paintable.”

“If you say so, darling.”

“He’s intelligent, affected and extremely companionable.”

“I see. And what about this chap Moult? Does he drink, did you say?”

“According to Aunt Bed, occasionally.”

“Jim Marchbanks is at the Vale.”

“I forgot to tell you — we’ve chummed up.”

“Have you now? Nice creature, isn’t he?”

They were silent for a minute or so. Presently Alleyn said his wife’s nose was as cold as an iced cherry but not as red. After a further interval she said she thought they should move on.

When they reached the turn in the drive where Halberds was fully revealed, Alleyn said that everything had become as clear as mud: Troy had obviously got herself into a film production, on location, of The Castle of Otranto and had been written into the script as the best way of keeping her quiet.

Blore and Mervyn came out to meet them. They both seemed to Troy to be excessively glum faced but their behaviour was impeccable. Mervyn, carrying Alleyn’s suitcase, led the way upstairs to a dressing-room on the far side of Troy’s bathroom and connecting with it.

“Mr. Bill-Tasman is in the boudoir, madam,” said Mervyn with his back to Alleyn. He cast a rather wild glance at Troy and withdrew.