“Had she done so?”

“Yes. It was on the piano. Under some music.”

“What else was on the piano?”

“A bundle of parasols.”

“Anything else?”

“No,” she said. “Nothing.”

“Or on the chairs or floor?”

“Nothing.”

“Are you sure?”

“Perfectly sure,” she said and dropped a piece of glass with a little tinkle in the grate.

“Well,” Alleyn said, “if I can’t help you, perhaps I’d better take myself off.”

She seemed to examine the photograph. She peered at it as if to make certain there were no flaws or scratches on Félicité’s image. “Very well,” she said and stood up, holding the face of the photograph against her flattish chest. “I’m sorry if I haven’t told you the kind of things you want to be told. The truth is so seldom what one really wants to hear, is it? But perhaps you don’t think I have told you the truth.”

“I think I am nearer to it than I was before I visited you.”

He left her, with the broken photograph still pressed against the bosom of her dark suit. On the landing he encountered Hortense. Her ladyship, Hortense said, smiling knowledgeably at him, would be glad to see him before he left. She was in her boudoir.

It was a small, delicately appointed room on the same floor. Lady Pastern rose from her desk, a pretty Empire affair, as he came in. She was firmly encased in her morning dress. Her hair was rigid, her hands ringed. A thin film of make-up had been carefully spread over the folds and shadows of her face. She looked ghastly but completely in order.

“It is so good of you to spare me a moment,” she said and held out her hand. This was unexepected. Evidently she considered that her change of manner required an explanation and, without wasting time, let him have it.

“I did not realize last night,” she said concisely, “that you must be the younger son of an old friend of my father’s. You are Sir George Alleyn’s son, are you not?”

Alleyn bowed. This, he thought, is going to be tiresome.

“Your father,” she said, “was a frequent visitor at my parents’ house in the Faubourg St.-Germain. He was, in those days, an attaché, I think, at your embassy in Paris.” Her voice faded and an extraordinary look came over her face. He was unable to interpret it.

“What is it, Lady Pastern?” he asked.

“Nothing. I was reminded, for a moment, of a former conversation. We were speaking of your father. I remember that he and your mother called upon one occasion, bringing their two boys with them. Perhaps you do not recollect the visit.”

“It is extremely kind of you to do so.”

“I had understood that you were to be entered in the British Diplomatic Service.”

“I was entirely unsuited for it, I’m afraid.”

“Of course,” she said with a sort of creaking graciousness, “young men after the first war began to find their vocation in unconventional fields. One understands and accepts these changes, doesn’t one?”

“Since I am here as a policeman,” Alleyn said politely, “I hope so.”

Lady Pastern examined him with that complete lack of reticence which is often the characteristic of royal personages. It occurred to him that she herself would also have shaped up well, in an intimidating way, as a policewoman.

“It is a relief to me,” she announced, after a pause, “that we are in your hands. You will appreciate my difficulties. It will make an enormous difference.”

Alleyn was familiar enough with this point of view, and detested it.

He thought it advisable however, to say nothing. Lady Pastern, erecting her bust and settling her shoulders, continued:

“I need not remind you of my husband’s eccentricities. They are public property. You have seen for yourself to what lengths of imbecility he will go. I can only assure you that though he may be, and indeed is, criminally stupid, he is perfectly incapable of crime as the word is understood in the profession you have elected to follow. He is not, in a word, a potential murderer. Or,” she added, apparently as an afterthought, “an actual one. Of that you may be assured.” She looked affably at Alleyn. Evidently, he thought, she had been a dark woman. There was a tinge of sable in her hair. Her skin was sallow and he thought she probably used something to deal with a darkness of the upper lip. It was odd that she should have such pale eyes. “I cannot blame you,” she said, as he was still silent, “if you suspect my husband. He has done everything to invite suspicion. In this instance, however, I am perfectly satisfied that he is guiltless.”

“We shall be glad to find proof of his innocence,” Alleyn said.

Lady Pastern closed one hand over the other. “Usually,” she said, “I comprehend entirely his motives. But entirely. On this occasion, however, I find myself somewhat at a loss. It is obvious to me that he develops some scheme. But what? Yes: I confess myself at a loss. I merely warn you, Mr. Alleyn, that to suspect my husband of this crime is to court acute embarrassment. You will gratify his unquenchable passion for self-dramatization. He prepares a dénouement.”

Alleyn took a quick decision. “It’s possible,” he said, “that we’ve anticipated him there.”

“Indeed?” she said quickly. “I am glad to hear it.”

“It appears that the revolver produced last night was not the one Lord Pastern loaded and took to the platform. I think he knows this. Apparently it amuses him to say nothing.”

“Ah!” She breathed out a sound of immense satisfaction. “As I thought. It amuses him. Perfectly! And his innocence is established, no doubt?”

Alleyn said carefully: “If the revolver produced is the one he fired, and the scars in the barrel suggest that it is, then a very good case could be made out on the lines of substitution.”

“I’m afraid I do not understand. A good case?”

“To the effect that Lord Pastern’s revolver was replaced by this other one which was loaded with the bolt that killed Rivera. That Lord Pastern fired it in ignorance of the substitution.”

She had a habit of immobility but her stillness now declared itself as if until this moment she had been restless. The creased lids came down like hoods over her eyes. She seemed to look at her hands. “Naturally,” she said, “I make no attempt to understand these assuredly very difficult complexities. It is enough, little as he deserves to escape, that my husband clears himself.”

“Nevertheless,” Alleyn said, “it remains necessary to discover the guilty person.” And he thought: “Damn it, I’m beginning to talk like a French phrase book, myself!”

“No doubt,” she said.

“And the guilty person, it seems obvious, was one of the party who dined here last night.”

Lady Pastern now closed her eyes completely. “A most distressing possibility,” she murmured.

“Hands,” Alleyn thought. “Carlisle Wayne’s hand fingering her neck. Miss Henderson’s hand jerking the photograph off the mantelpiece. Lady Pastern’s hands closing upon each other like vices. Hands.”

“Furthermore,” he said, “if the substitution theory is right, the time field is narrowed considerably. Lord Pastern put his revolver under his sombrero on the edge of the band dais, you remember.”

“I made a point of disregarding him,” his wife said instantly. “The whole affair was entirely distasteful to me. I did not notice and therefore I do not remember.”

“That’s what he did, however. The possibilities, as far as substitution goes, are therefore limited to the people who were within easy reach of his sombrero.”

“No doubt you will question the waiters. The man was of the type which makes itself insufferable to servants.”

“By Gum,” Alleyn thought, “you’re almost one up on me there, old girl!” But he said: “We must remember that the substituted weapon was charged with a bolt and blank cartridges. The bolt was made out of a section of your parasol handle and its point of a stiletto from your work-box.” He paused. Her fingers were more closely interlocked but she didn’t move or speak. “And the blanks,” he added, “were, it is almost certain, made by Lord Pastern and left in his study. The waiters are ruled out, I think.”