“I refuse to speculate. But I don’t like your very free rendering of the last sentence. And now what’s all this about Miss Janey Jenkins?”

Nigel lanched into an account of his evening’s experiences. The two detectives listened in silence.

“You did very well,” said Allen when Nigel came to a stop. “Thank you, Bathgate. Now let me be quite sure of what you overheard from the perfumed depths of your clothes cupboard. Pringle asked Miss Jenkins to stick to their story about Sunday afternoon?”

“Yes.”

“And she asked if it had anything to do with his cigarettes?”

“Yes. That’s it.”

“Right! You arranged to visit her this morning?”

“Yes. Before the inquest.”

“Would you mind if I took your place?”

“Not if you’ll swear you’ll tell me what happens.”

“What’s the time?”

“Half-past nine,” said Fox.

“I’ll be off. See you at the inquest.”

Alleyn took a taxi to Yeoman’s Row. Janey’s studio was at the far end. It was a sort of liaison office between Bohemia and slumland. Five very grubby little boys and a baby were seated on the steps.

“Hullo,” said Alleyn. “What’s the game?”

“Ain’t no game. Just talkun,” said the grubbiest and smallest of the little boys.

“I know,” said Alleyn. “Who’s going to ring this bell for me?”

There was a violent assault upon the bell.

“I done it, Mister,” said the largest of the little boys.

The baby rolled off the second step and set up an appalling yell.

“Stan-lee!” screamed a voice from an upper window, “what are you doing to your little bruwer?”

“ ’Snot me; it’s ’im,” said Stanley, pointing to Alleyn.

“I’m frightfully sorry,” said Alleyn. “Here. Wait a moment. Is he hurt?”

“ ’E won’t leave ’is ’oller not without you picks ’im up,” said Stanley.

Alleyn picked the baby up. The baby instantly seized his nose, screamed with ecstasy, and beat with the other hand upon Alleyn’s face.

It was on this tableau that Janey opened her door.

The Chief Inspector hurriedly deposited the child on the pavement, gave Stanley a shilling for the party, took off his hat, and said:

“May I come in, Miss Jenkins?”

“Inspector Alleyn?” said Janey. “Yes. Of course.”

As she shut the door Stanley was heard to say “Coo! It’s a cop,” and the baby instantly began to roar again.

Without speaking Janey led the way upstairs to the studio. A solitary chair was drawn up to the gas fire. The room was scrupulously tidy and rather desolate.

“Won’t you sit down?” said Janey without enthusiasm.

“I’ll get another chair,” offered Alleyn and did so.

“I suppose Mr. Bathgate sent you here?” asked Janey.

“Yes. In effect he did.”

“I was a fool.”

“Why?”

“To make friends with — your friend.”

“On the contrary,” said Alleyn, “you were very wise. If I may say so without impertinence you would do well to make friends with me.”

Janey laughed unpleasantly.

“Dilly, dilly, dilly,” she said.

“No. Not ‘dilly, dilly, dilly.’ You didn’t murder Miss Quayne, did you?”

“You can hardly expect me to answer ‘yes.’ ”

“I expect an answer, however.”

“Then,” said Janey, “I did not murder Cara Quayne.”

“Did Mr. Pringle murder Miss Quayne?”

“No.”

“You see,” said Alleyn with a smile, “we get on like a house on fire. Where was Mr. Pringle at three o’clock on Sunday afternoon?”

She drew in her breath with a little gasp.

“I’ve told you.”

“But I’m asking you again. Where was he?”

“Here.”

“That,” said Alleyn harshly, “is your story and you are sticking to it? I wish you wouldn’t.”

“What do you mean!”

“It’s not true, you know. He may have lunched with you but he did not stay here all the afternoon. He went to the temple.”

“You knew—”

“Now you give me an opportunity for the detective’s favourite cliché. ‘I didn’t know, but you have just told me?’”

“You’re hateful!” she burst out suddenly. “Hateful! Hateful!”

“Don’t cry!” said Alleyn more gently. “It’s only a cliché and I would have found out anyway.”

“To come prying into my house! To find the weak place and go for it! To pretend to make friends and then trap me into breaking faith with — with someone who can’t take care of himself.”

“Yes,” he said, “it’s my job to do those sorts of things.”

“You call it a smart bit of work, I suppose.”

“The other word for it is ‘routine.’ ”

“I’ve broken faith,” said Janey. “I’ll never be able to help him again. We’re done for now.”

“Nonsense!” said Alleyn crisply. “Don’t dramatise yourself.”

Something in his manner brought her up sharply. For a second or two she looked at him and then she said very earnestly:

“Do you suspect Maurice?”

“I shall be forced to if you both insist on lying lavishly and badly. Come now. Do you know why he went to the temple on Sunday afternoon?”

“Yes,” said Janey, “I think I know. He hasn’t told me.”

“Is it something to do with the habit he has contracted?”

“He told you himself about that, didn’t he?”

“He did. We have analysed Mr. Garnette’s cigarettes and found heroin. I believe, however, that Mr. Pringle has gone further than an indulgence in drugged cigarettes. Am I right?”

“Yes,” whispered Janey.

“Mr. Garnette is responsible for all this, I suppose.”

“Yes.” She hesitated, oddly, and then with a lift of her chin repeated: “Yes.”

“Now,” Alleyn continued, “please will you tell me when Mr. Pringle left here on Sunday afternoon?”

She still looked very earnestly at him. Suddenly she knelt on the rug and held her hands to the heater, her head turned towards him. The movement was singularly expressive. It was as though she had come to a definite decision and had relaxed.

“I will tell you,” she said. “He went away from here at about half-past two. I’m not sure of the exact time. He was very restless and — and difficult. He had smoked three of those cigarettes and had got no more with him. We had a scene.”

“May I know what it was about?”

“I’ll tell you. Mr. Alleyn, I’m sorry I was so rude just now. I must have caught my poor Maurice’s manners, I think. I do trust you. Perhaps that’s not the right word because you haven’t said you think him innocent. But I know he’s innocent and I trust you to find out.”

“You are very brave,” said Alleyn.

“The scene was about — me. When he’s had much of that stuff he wants to make love. Not as if it’s me, but simply because I’m there. I’m not posing as an ingenue of eighteen — and they’re not so ‘ingenue’ nowadays either. I’m not frightened of passion and I can look after myself, but there’s something about him then that horrifies me. It’s like a nightmare. Sometimes he seems to focus his — his senses on one tiny little thing — my wrist or just one spot on my arm. It’s morbid and rather terrifying.”

She spoke rapidly now as though it was a relief to speak and without any embarrassment or hesitation.

“It was like that on Sunday. He held my arm tight and kissed the inside. Just one place over and over again. When I told him to stop he wouldn’t. It was horrible. I can give you no idea. I struggled and when he still went on, I hit his face. Then there was the real scene. I told him he was ruining himself and degrading me and all because of the drugs. Then we quarreled about Father Garnette, desperately. I said he was to blame and that he was rotten all through. I spoke about Cara.” She stopped short.

“That made him very angry?”

“Terribly angry. Hatefully angry. For a moment I was frightened. He said if that was what they did — You understand?”

“Yes,” said Alleyn.

“Then he suddenly let me go. He had been almost screaming, but now he began to speak very quietly. He simply told me he would go to the church flat and get more of — more heroin. ‘A damn’ big shot of it,’ he said. He told me quite slowly and distinctly that Father Garnette had some in the bedroom and that he would take it. Then he laughed, gently, and went away. And then in the evening, when he’d had more of that stuff, I suppose, he met me as though nothing had happened. That’s a pretty good sample of the happy wooing we enjoy together.”