“Perhaps ten minutes. No longer.”

“I see. Mr. Losse,” said Alleyn, “you seem to me to be a more than usually intelligent young man.”

“Thank you,” said Fabian, “for those few unsolicited orchids.”

“So why on earth, I wonder, have you produced this ridiculous taradiddle?”

“There!” cried Ursula. “There! What did I tell you?”

“All I can say,” said Fabian stiffly, “is that I am extremely relieved that Mr. Alleyn considers pure taradiddle a statement upon which I found it difficult to embark and which was, in effect, a confession.”

“My dear chap,” said Alleyn. “I don’t doubt for a moment that you’ve had these beastly experiences. I spoke carelessly and I apologize. What I do suggest is that the inference you have drawn is quite preposterous. I don’t say that, pathologically speaking, you were incapable of committing this crime, but I do say that, physically speaking, on the evidence we’ve got, you couldn’t possibly have done so.”

“Ten minutes,” said Fabian.

“Exactly. Ten minutes. Ten minutes in which to travel about a fifth of a mile, strike a blow, and — I’m sorry to be specific over unpleasant details but it’s as well to clear this up — suffocate your victim, remove a great deal of wool from the press, bind up the body, dispose of it, and refill the press. You couldn’t have done it during the short time you were unconscious, and I don’t imagine you are going to tell me you returned later, master of yourself, to tidy up a crime you didn’t remember committing. As you know, these must have been the circumstances. You wore white flannels, I understand? Very well, what sort of state were they in when you came to yourself?”

“Loamy,” said Fabian. “Don’t forget the vegetable marrows. Evidently I’d collapsed into them.”

“But not woolly? Not stained in any other way?”

Ursula got up quickly and walked over to the window.

“Need we?” asked Fabian, watching her.

“Certainly not. It can wait.”

“No,” said Ursula. “We asked for it; let’s get on with it. I’m all right. I’m only getting a cigarette.”

Her back was towards them. Her voice sounded remote and it was impossible to glean from it the colour of her thoughts. “Let’s get on with it,” she repeated.

“You may remember,” said Fabian, “that the murderer was supposed to have used a suit of overalls belonging to Tommy Johns and a pair of working gloves out of one of the pockets. The overalls hung on a nail near the press. Next morning when Tommy put them on he found a seam had split and he noticed — other details.”

“If that theory is correct,” said Alleyn, “and I think that very probably it is, another minute or two is added to the time-table. You know you must have thought all this out for yourself. You must have thrashed it out a great many times. To reach the wool-shed and escape the notice of the rest of the party in the garden, you would have had to go round about, either through the house or by way of the side lawn and the yards at the back. You couldn’t have used the bottom path because Miss Lynne or Miss Harme would have seen you. Now, before dinner I ran by the most direct route from the vegetable garden to the wool-shed and it took me two minutes. In your case the direct route is impossible. By the indirect routes it took three and four minutes respectively. That leaves a margin, at the best, of about four minutes in which to commit the crime. Can you wonder that I described your theory, inaccurately perhaps but with some justification, as a taradiddle?”

“In England,” Fabian said, “after I’d had my first lapse, I went rather thoroughly into the whole business of unconscious behaviour following injuries to the head. I was—” his mouth twisted—“rather interested. The condition is quite well-known and apparently not even fantastically unusual. Oddly enough it’s sometimes accompanied by an increase in physical strength.”

“But not,” Alleyn pointed out mildly, “by the speed of a scalded cat going off madly in all directions.”

“All right, all right,” said Fabian with a jerk of his head. “I’m immensely relieved. Naturally.”

“I still don’t see—” Alleyn began, but Fabian, with a spurt of nervous irritation, cut him short: “Can you see, at least, that a man in my condition might become morbidly apprehensive about his own actions? To have even one minute cut out of your life, leaving an unknown black lane down which you must have wandered, horribly busy! It’s a disgusting, an intolerable thing to happen to you. You feel that nothing was impossible during the lost time, nothing!”

“I see,” said Alleyn’s voice quietly in the shadow.

“I assure you I’m not burning to persuade you. You say I couldn’t have done it. All right. Grand. And now, for God’s sake let’s get on with it.”

Ursula came back from the window and sat on the arm of the sofa. Fabian got to his feet, and moved restlessly about the room. There was a brief silence.

“I’ve always thought,” Fabian said abruptly, “that the Buchmanite habit of public confession was one of the few really indecent practices of modern times, but I must say it has its horrid fascination. Once you start on it, it’s very difficult to leave off. It’s like taking the cap off a steam whistle. I’m afraid there’s still a squeak left in me.”

“Well, I don’t pretend to understand—” Douglas began.

“Of course not,” Fabian rejoined. “How should you? You’re not the neurotic sort like me, Douglas, are you? I wasn’t that sort before, you know. Before Dunkirk, I mean. You were wounded in the bottom, I was cracked on the head. That’s the difference between us.”

“To accuse yourself of murder—”

“War neurosis, my dear Doug. Typical case: ‘Losse, F., First Lieut. Subject to attacks of depression. Refusal to discuss condition. Treatment: Murder in the family followed by psychotherapy (police brand) and Buchmanism. Patient evinced marked desire to talk about himself. Sense of guilt strongly manifested. Cure, doubtful.’ ”

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

“Of course not. Sense of guilt aggravated by history of violent antagonism to victim. In fact,” said Fabian, coming to a halt before Alleyn’s chair, “three weeks before she was killed, Flossie and I had one hell of a row!”

Alleyn looked up at Fabian and saw his lips tremble into a sneer. He made a small breathy sound something like laughter. He wore the conceited, defiant air of the neurotic who bitterly despises his own weakness. Difficult, Alleyn thought, and damned tiresome. He’s going to treat me like an alienist. Blast! “And,” he said, “so you had a row?”

Ursula bent forward and put her hand in Fabian’s. For a moment his fingers closed tightly about hers and then, with an impatient movement, he jerked away from her.

“Oh, yes,” he said loudly. “I’m afraid, since I’ve started on my course of indecent exposure, I’ve got to tell you about that too. I’m sorry I can’t wait until we’re alone together. Very boring for the others. Especially Douglas. Douggy always pays. And I apologize to Ursula because she comes into it. Sorry, Ursy, very bad form.”

“If you mean what I think you mean,” said Douglas, “I most certainly agree. Surely Ursy can be left out of this.”

“Don’t be an idiot, Douglas,” Ursula said impatiently. “It’s what he’s doing to himself that matters.”

“And to Douglas, of course,” Fabian cut in loudly. “Don’t forget what I’m doing to poor old Douglas. He becomes the traditional figure of fun. Upon my word it’s like a fin de siècle farce. Flossie was the duenna of course, and you, Douglas, her candidate for the mariage de convenance. Ursy is the wayward heroine who shakes her curls and looks elsewhere. I, at least, should have the sympathy of the audience if only because I didn’t get it from anybody else. There is no hero, I go sour in the part. You ought to be the confidante, Terry, but I’ve an idea you ran a little sub-plot of your own.”