Oberon gave a bubbling cry: “I am betrayed!”

Raoul, hearing his voice, repeated: “Anathema!” and made the sign of the cross.

Oberon dragged Miss Garbel to her feet. He held her with his right hand; in his left was the dagger. She chattered in his face: “You can’t! You can’t! I’m protected. You can’t!”

Alleyn advanced until he was quite close to them. Glande and Annabella Wells were on their feet.

“Is this your doing?” Oberon demanded, lowering his face to Miss Garbel’s.

“Not mine!” she chattered. “Not this time. Not mine!”

He flung her off. Baradi turned on Raoul.

“Well!” Baradi said in French, “so I know you, now. Where’s your master?”

“Occupy yourself with your own affairs, Monsieur.”

“We are lost!” Oberon cried out in English.

His hand moved. The knife glinted.

“Alors, Raoul!” said Alleyn.

Raoul stooped and ran. He ran out of the pentacle and across the floor. The Egyptian darted out and was knocked sideways. His head struck the corner of the altar and he lay still. Raoul sped through the open door into Oberon’s room. Oberon followed him. Alleyn followed Oberon and caught him up on the far side of the great looking-glass. He seized his right hand as it was raised. “Not this time,” Alleyn grunted and jerked his arm. The dagger flew from Oberon’s hand and splintered the great glass. At the same moment Raoul kicked. Oberon gave a scream of pain, staggered across the room and lurched against the window. With a whirr and a clatter the blind flew up and Oberon sank on the floor moaning. Alleyn turned to find Baradi facing him with the knife in his left hand.

“You,” Baradi said. “I might have guessed. You!”

iv

From the moment that the affair began, as it were, to wind itself up in Oberon’s room, it became a straightout conflict between Alleyn and Baradi. Alleyn had guessed that it would be so. Even while he sweated to remember his police training in unarmed combat he found time to consider that Oberon, naked and despicable, had at last become a negligible element. Alleyn was even aware of Carbury Glande and Annabella Wells teetering uncertainly in the doorway, and of Miss Garbel, who hovered like a spinsterly half-back on the edge of the scrimmage.

But chiefly he was aware of Baradi’s dark infuriated body, smelling of sandalwood and sweat, and of the knowledge that he himself was the fitter man. They struggled together ridiculously and ominously, looking, in their white robes, like a couple of frenzied monks. There was, for Alleyn, a sort of pleasure in this fight. “I needn’t worry. For once, I needn’t worry,” he thought. “For once the final arbitrament is as simple as this. I’m fitter than he is.”

And when Raoul, absurd in his underpants and long gloves, suddenly hurled himself at Baradi and brought him down with a crash, Alleyn was conscious of a sort of irritation. He looked across the floor and saw that Raoul’s foot, in its ridiculous sandal, had pinned down Baradi’s left wrist. He saw Baradi’s fingers uncurl from the knife-handle. He shoved free, landed a short-arm jab on the point of Baradi’s jaw and felt him go soft. They had brought down the prayer wheel in their struggle. Alleyn reached for it and flung it at the window. It crashed through and he heard it fall with the broken glass on the railway line below. Oberon screamed out an oath. Alleyn fetched his breath and blew with all the wind he had on M. Dupont’s police whistle. It trilled shrilly, like a toy, and was answered and echoed and answered again outside.

“The house is surrounded,” Alleyn said, looking at Glande and Oberon. “I have a police authority. Anyone trying violence or flight will be dealt with out-of-hand. Stay where you are, all of you.”

The glare from the sun-burst streamed through the doorway on clouds of incense. Alleyn bound Baradi’s arms behind his back with the cord of his gown. Raoul tied his ankles together with the long gloves. Baradi’s head lolled drunkenly and he made uncouth noises.

“I want to make a statement,” Oberon said shrilly. “I am a British subject. I have my passport. I offer myself for Queen’s evidence. I have my passport.”

Annabella Wells, standing in the doorway, began to laugh. Carbury Glande said: “Shut up, for God’s sake. This is IT.”

Abruptly the room was lit. Wall-lamps, a bedside lamp and a standard lamp all came to life. By normal standards it was not a brilliant illumination, but it had the effect of reducing that unlikely interior to an embarrassing state of anti-climax. Glande, Annabella Wells and poor Miss Garbel, huddled in their robes, looked dishevelled and ineffectual. Baradi had a trickle of blood running from his nose into his moustache. The Egyptian servant staggered into the doorway, holding his head in his hands and wearing the foolish expression of a punch-happy pugilist. Oberon, standing before the cracked looking-glass as no doubt he had often done before: Oberon, naked, untactfully lit, was so repellent a sight that Alleyn threw the cover of the divan at him.

“You unspeakable monstrosity,” he said, “get behind that.”

“I offer a full statement. I am the victim of Dr. Baradi. I claim protection.”

Baradi opened his eyes and shook the blood from his moustache.

“I challenge your authority,” he said, blinking at Alleyn.

“Alleyn. Chief Detective-Inspector, C.I.D., New Scotland Yard. On loan to the Sûreté. My card and my authority are in my coat-pocket and my coat’s in young Herrington’s room.”

Baradi twisted his head to look at Annabella. “Did you know this?” he demanded.

“Yes, darling,” she said.

“You little—”

“Is that Gyppo for what, darling?”

“In a moment,” Alleyn said, “the Commissioner of Police will be here and you will be formally arrested and charged. I don’t know that I’m obliged to give you the customary warning but the habit’s irresistible. Anything you say—”

Baradi and Annabella entirely disregarded him.

“Why didn’t you tell me who he was?” Baradi said, “Why?”

“He asked me not to. He’s got something. I didn’t know he was here tonight. I didn’t think he’d come back.”

“Liar!”

“As you choose, my sweet.”

“—may be used in evidence.”

“You can’t charge me with anything,” Carbury Glande said. “I am an artist. I’ve formed the habit of smoking and I come to France to do it. I’m not mixed up in anything. If I hadn’t had my smokes tonight I’d bloody well fight you.”

“Nonsense,” said Alleyn.

“I desire to make a statement,” said Oberon, who was now wrapped in crimson satin and sitting on the divan.

“I wish to speak to you alone, Mr. Alleyn,” said Baradi.

“All in good time.”

“Garbel!” Baradi ejaculated.

“Shall I answer him, Roddy dear?”

“If you want to, Cousin Penelope.”

“Cousin!” Mr. Oberon shouted.

“Only by marriage. I informed you,” Miss Garbel reminded him, “of the relationship. And I think it only right to tell you that if it hadn’t been for all the Ginnys—”

“My God,” Carbury Glande shouted, “where are Ginny and Robin?”

“Ginny!” Oberon cried out. “Where is Ginny?”

“I hope!” rejoined Miss Garbel, “in no place so unsanctified where such as thou mayst find her.’ The quotation, cousin, is from Macbeth.”

“And couldn’t be more appropriate,” murmured Alleyn, bowing to her. He sat down at Mr. Oberon’s desk and drew a sheet of paper towards him.

“This woman,” Baradi said to Alleyn, “is not in her right mind. I tell you this professionally. She has been under my observation for some time. In my considered opinion she is unable to distinguish between fact and fantasy. If you base your preposterous behavior on any statement of hers—”

“Which I don’t, you know.”

“I am an Egyptian subject. I claim privilege. And I warn you, that if you hold me, you’ll precipitate a political incident.”