‘Think about yourself, Rizla,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘We wouldn’t want people to get the idea that you harbour a morbid interest in corpses’ undergarments.’

‘No we would not!’ I agreed. ‘But I do not see any needle marks.’

‘Then we must turn him over.’

‘Must we?’

‘Yes.’

So we did turn him over and we did peep into intimate places, but we found no needle marks. But to my horror I now noticed that the corpse was beginning to leak blood. From every available orifice.

‘That is me done,’ I told Hugo Rune. ‘I will find something to cover him up with. That is most disgusting.’

Thus saying, I departed at the hurry-up and went in search of a temporary shroud. And I wondered, Should I phone for an ambulance also?

I ambled down this corridor and that, if corridors they actually were, and managed to get myself a bit lost. Eventually I happened back at somewhere that I recognised, but this was not a laundry room, but rather the room that housed the Mark Sevens.

I smiled upon those Mark Sevens. So, steel pans were invented right here, in London, were they? By a female impersonator working for the Ministry of Serendipity?

Aha, I thought to myself. That might explain why history does not record this fact, but prefers the tale that they were created in Trinidad from oil drums left by the American Air Force.

‘It is all so simple once it is explained,’ I said to myself. And then I thought to myself, I would not mind having a little go on those steel pans. Not that I could ever actually say to anyone that I had. But just to satisfy myself that I had played upon the prototypes before they came into the public domain.

I glanced all around and about me. But there was no one to be seen. So I sidled over to those pans, picked up the pair of sticks that rested upon one of them and examined the playing surface.

‘A somewhat curious configuration,’ I said. ‘That is neither your Invaders, nor your fourths and fifths.’ For I knew a little about steel pans and how their notes were laid out. It is all to do with making use of the concordant and sympathetic harmonies and upper partials.

These things matter.

I had a little tap at the nearest indentations, thereby eliciting a most horrible deadpan note. ‘Oh dear,’ I said. ‘This pan has been really badly tuned. Hugo Rune was certainly right about what goes on here.’ And then I tapped upon another, bringing forth a dire twang that set my teeth to rattling. ‘It is complete rubbish,’ I said. ‘You could never get any kind of decent tune out of this. No tune whatsoever, I suspect.’ And I thrashed randomly about, creating a hideous cacophony, which although not loud, due to the outré acoustics, was certainly horrible in every single sense there was of the word.

And then I went down in an untidy heap. Knocked from my feet by a blow. And then further blows rained down upon me and I shouted (in a futile fashion) for them to stop. ‘Get off me,’ were the words I used. ‘Why are you hitting me?’ were others. ‘Help!’ was a single one also.

‘What did you think you were doing? Who gave you permission to play the Mark Sevens? You beastly boy, you need some discipline.’

Which caused me to become aware that it was Miss Newman who was slapping me all about. Which somehow made it even more wrong. And certainly much more undignified.

‘Unhand me, you weirdo.’ And I struggled up, prepared to defend myself. ‘I will clunk you on the button if I have to.’ And I raised up both of my fists.

‘Oh bless me, I am so sorry.’ And the she-male started to dust me down, but I did backings away.

‘I really am so sorry,’ she continued. ‘But you must understand. They are experimental instruments. Precisely tuned.’

‘They are terribly tuned,’ I said to Miss Newman. ‘Give me a ball-pane hammer and half an hour and I will knock a half-decent set of scales into them.’

‘No!’ And Miss Newman threw her hands up. ‘Horrid mental boy. Why does dear Hugo employ such awful boys? When you come to a sticky end like the others, it will serve you right.’

‘I am sorry I touched the pans,’ I said. ‘I came looking for something to cover up the body. I am sorry that I have upset you so much.’

‘All right then. No harm done, I suppose. I shall lead you to the laundry cupboard – follow me, if you will.’

I was led to the laundry cupboard and then to the corpse and this I covered up.

‘I think you should both leave now,’ said Miss Newman. ‘Your bad boy servant here has behaved most naughtily, Hugo, I’d like you to take him home.’

‘I only had a little tap on the Mark Sevens,’ I told the Magus, ‘and they are completely out of tune. The notes they raise when you strike them are horribly discordant. They literally make you feel sick.’

‘Take him home, please,’ said Miss Newman.

‘I think I now have all the evidence I need,’ said Hugo Rune.

‘And so you will depart?’ asked Miss Newman.

‘Not perhaps quite yet. So you couldn’t get a tune out of the Mark Sevens, Rizla?’

‘He was doing it all wrong, please take him home.’

‘I have some knowledge of music and harmonics,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘I’m sure I could tease a jig or two from these errant instruments.’

‘You do not have sufficient security clearance,’ Miss Newman wailed. ‘Please leave me alone with my grief. The dead man was a close friend of mine – have some respect for him, if not for me.’

‘Let us return to the pan yard, as it were,’ said the Magus, ‘and see what we shall see.’

‘Oh no you don’t.’ And with a suddenness that certainly surprised me, even if it failed to raise even a hint of surprise from Mr Hugo Rune, Miss Newman tugged a Luger pistol from somewhere and pointed it at us.

Well, mostly at Hugo Rune, as it happened.

‘He is the murderer!’ I cried, pointing at Miss Newman. ‘I suspected it from the moment I saw this person. I certainly should be given that cigar.’

‘Perhaps you’ll be able to smoke it through the hole in your chest,’ said Miss Newman, the Luger now swinging towards me. ‘But I am intrigued, Mr Hugo Rune – how did you know it was me?’

‘I did not,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘Not until Rizla mentioned the cacophony of the steel pans. And your anxiety that no one should touch them but yourself.’

‘All right, I am lost again,’ I said. ‘What have the steel pans got to do with the murders? And is this or is this not Miss Roberta Newman?’

‘Will you tell him, or should I?’ asked Hugo Rune.

‘Tell him in Hell,’ said Miss Newman. Who then did squeezings on the trigger.

‘You must always be careful to release the safety catch,’ said Hugo Rune. And Roberta Newman glanced down at the gun and Himself struck out with his stick.

The baddie went down in a flutter of lace and a pitter-patter of jet.

‘Let us open her up,’ said Hugo Rune, ‘and see what we have inside.’

And with that he put his boot to the fallen figure and flipped it over onto its front.

‘Unlace the corset, Rizla.’

‘No, I am not too keen,’ I said. ‘And now not altogether sure what is going on. Would you please mind explaining it to me?’

‘I will as you unlace.’

And so I unlaced and Hugo Rune spoke, and this is what he said. ‘The operatives who died,’ said Hugo Rune, ‘did not die from some flesh-eating virus, although the effects were very similar. Their internal organs were turned to pulp. And how was this evil done?’ I shook my head to show that I did not know and Hugo Rune continued. ‘Infrasound,’ he said. ‘They were killed by the Mark Seven pans being played in a certain rhythm, creating a deadly frequency of sound in a standing wave capable of literally scrambling the organs of anyone positioned on the audience side of the pan. The idea being to bring this project to its knees and have it cancelled altogether.’

‘And why am I unlacing this corset?’ I asked.

‘Why, to see just who we have inside.’