“Bolshie-minded, perhaps,” ruminated Fox. “Dare say. She looks like that.”

“He may have carried on with her too.”

“Oh, Fox! She does not look like that.”

“People take very strange fancies sometimes, sir.”

“How true that is. No speculations, Foxkin.”

“All right, sir, all right. What about Exhibit C?”

“Exhibit C. In re above. Heavy restraint of the matron, Sister Marigold, when Banks was mentioned. Marigold seemed to me to seethe with suppressed information. ‘Wild horses wouldn’t get me to tell, but, my oath, if wild horses could—?’ ”

“And Sir John himself?”

“Agitato ma non troppo, and unnaturally... This abbreviation business is insidious. Sir John was so anxious to let everybody know he had prepared the hyoscine injection, wasn’t he?”

“Very straightforward of him, I thought,” remarked Fox doubtfully.

“Oh,” said Alleyn vaguely, “so did I. As honest as the day.”

Fox regarded him suspiciously.

“Lady O’Callaghan gave her evidence well,” he said.

“Admirably. But, oh, lummie, how we did hover on the brink of those letters. I’d warned the coroner, who had, of course, read them and thought they were sufficient grounds for a post-mortem. However, he agreed it was better they should not come out. He was very coy about the whole thing, anyway, and would have repressed pints of hyoscine— ”

“Hyoscine!” shouted Fox. “Aha — you are thinking of hyoscine!”

“Don’t shriek at me like that; I nearly bit my pipe-stem in half. I’m not thinking particularly of hyoscine. I was about to remark that I was in deadly fear Lady O’Callaghan would drag in the letters. I’d warned her, advised her, implored her not to, but she’s not a Ratsbane for nothing, and you never know.”

“And Thoms?”

“Thoms took the line that the whole show was unnecessary, but he gave his evidence well, appeared to have nothing to conceal apart from his regret over divulging the fainting episode, and seemed to resent the slightest criticism of Phillips.”

“Yes,” Fox agreed, “I noticed that. Roberts took much the same line. That’s what I mean about the experts sticking together.”

“Oh, quite. They wanted to pull together, but I’m pretty certain they were not all agreed. I did rather feel that they were uneasy about Nurse Harden’s delay over the anti-gas syringe, and that there was something about Nurse Banks that both Sister Marigold and Jane Harden shied away from.”

“There were three injections altogether,” said Fox thoughtfully. He held up as many short fingers. “The hyoscine, prepared and injected by Phillips; the camphor, prepared and injected by Nurse Banks, and the anti-gas, prepared by Nurse Banks and injected by Mr. Thoms.”

“Sounds like a petrol station. Well, there it is. If his tummy turns up a natural, we can forget all about it. If dirty weather sets in, it’ll be with a vengeance. Do you like cocktail metaphors?”

“I’ve been talking to Inspector Boys about the political side,” said Fox. “He’s got all the Kakaroff crowd taped out and he doesn’t think there’s much in it.”

“Nor do I. Since the Krasinky lot were roped in they’ve piped down considerably. [See A Man Lay Dead] Still, you never know with these people. They may mean business. If that Bill goes through next week, it’ll larn ’em. I hope there’s no nonsense at the funeral to-morrow. We’re making elaborate enough arrangements for burying the poor chap — shutting the stable door with a gold padlock. They might possibly choose the moment to celebrate at the funeral, but, no, I don’t think they were in on the murder. I’m inclined to think they would have staged something more spectacular — a suitable echo to the Yugoslavia affair. Hyoscine doesn’t sound their cup of tea at all.”

“Why hyoscine?” asked Fox with massive innocence.

“You old devil,” said Alleyn, “I refuse to discuss the case with you. Go and catch pickpockets.”

“Sorry, sir.”

“And if anything comes of this P.M. business, you can jolly well deal with Lady O’Callaghan yourself. That makes you blanch. What’s the time?”

“Three o’clock, sir. The results of the post-mortem ought to come in fairly soon.”

“I suppose so. Our famous pathologist is going to ring me up himself as soon as he has informed the coroner.”

Alleyn got up and walked about the room hunching up one shoulder and whistling under his breath. The desk telephone rang. Fox answered it.

“It’s a Miss O’Callaghan asking for you,” he said stolidly.

“Miss—? Who the devil—? Oh, all right. Now what’s in the wind, do you suppose?”

“Send her up,” said Fox to the telephone. “I’d better push off, sir,” he added.

“I suppose you had. This is all very rum — very rum indeed.”

Fox departed. Alleyn knocked out his pipe, opened the window, and sat behind the desk. A woman’s voice sounded in the passage outside. The door was opened by a police-constable, who said:

“Miss O’Callaghan, sir,” and withdrew.

Ruth O’Callaghan walked into the room. She appeared to be dressed in a series of unrelated lengths of material. Her eye-glasses were canted over the top angle of her enormous nose. Her handbag and umbrella, wedded by an unhappy confusion of cords and leather thongs, dangled from a gaunt wrist. Her face, exclusive of the nose, was pale. She seemed to be grievously agitated.

Alleyn rose and waited politely.

“Oh!” said Ruth, catching sight of him. “Oh!” She came towards him at a kind of gallop and held out the hand that was encumbered with the umbrella and handbag. Alleyn shook it.

“How do you do?” he murmured.

“So good of you to see me,” Ruth began. “I know how busy you must be. The statistics of crime are so appalling. Too kind.”

“I am making no arrests this afternoon,” said Alleyn gravely.

She gazed at him dubiously and then broke into a sort of whooping laugh.

“Oh, no, no, no,” said Ruth. “That’s very funny — no, of course, I didn’t suppose— ” She stopped laughing abruptly and looked disconcertingly lugubrious.

“No,” she repeated. “But it is kind, all the same, when I expect you think I’m a jolly old nuisance of an interfering woman.”

“Do sit down,” said Alleyn gently, and pulled forward a. chair. Ruth shut up rather like a two-foot rule. He pushed the chair under her and returned to his own. She leant forward, resting her elbows on his desk, and gazed earnestly at him.

“Mr. Alleyn,” Ruth began, “what is this dreadful, dreadful suspicion about my brother’s death?”

“At the moment, Miss O’Callaghan, it can scarcely be called a suspicion.”

“I don’t understand. I’ve been talking to my sister-in-law. She said some dreadful things to me — terrible— appalling. She says my brother was”—Ruth drew in her breath noisily and on the crest of the intake uttered the word “murdered.”

“Lady O’Callaghan attaches a certain amount of importance to threatening letters which were sent to Sir Derek. You have heard of these letters, I expect.”

“You mean from those horrible anarchist people? Of course, I know they behaved very badly, but Derry — my brother, you know — always said they wouldn’t do anything, and I’m quite certain he was right. Nobody else could have any reason for wishing him harm.” (“She hasn’t heard about the other letters, then,” thought Alleyn.) “Everybody adored him, simply adored him, dear old boy. Mr. Alleyn, I’ve come to beg you not to go on with the case. The inquest was bad enough, but the other — the — you know what I mean. I can’t endure the thought of it. Please — please, Mr. Alleyn— ” She fumbled desperately in the bag and produced a colossal handkerchief.

“I’m so sorry,” said Alleyn. “I know it’s a beastly idea, but just think a little. Does it matter so much what they do to our bodies when we’ve finished with them? I can’t think so. It seems to me that the impulse to shrink from such things is based on a fallacy. Perhaps it is impertinent of me to speak so frankly.” Ruth gurgled and shook her head dolefully. “Well then, suppose there was no post-mortem, what about your feelings then? There would always be an unscotched suspicion whenever you thought of your brother.”