Her lips parted and closed again. She said: “Am I, perhaps, being stupid? It seems to me that this theory of substitution may embrace a wider field. Why could the change of weapons not have been effected before my husband appeared? He was later than the others in appearing. So, for example, was Mr. Bellairs. I believe that is the conductor’s name.”

“Lord Pastern insists that neither Bellairs nor anyone else had an opportunity to get at his revolver, which he says he carried in his hip pocket until he put it under the sombrero. I am persuaded that the change-over was effected after Lord Pastern made his entrance on the band dais and it’s obvious that the substituted revolver must have been prepared by someone who had access to your parasol…”

“In the restaurant,” she interrupted quickly. “Before the performance. The parasols must have been within reach of all of them.”

“… and also access to the study in this house.”

“Why?”

“To get the stiletto which was carried there.”

She drew in her breath sharply. “It may have been an entirely different stiletto, I imagine.”

“Then why has this particular one disappeared from the study? Your daughter took it away from the drawing-room when she left for her interview in the study with Rivera. Do you remember that?”

He could have sworn that she did if only because she made no sign whatsoever. She couldn’t conceal the start of astonishment or dismay which this statement should have produced if she hadn’t been prepared for it.

“I remember nothing of the sort,” she said.

“That is what happened however,” Alleyn said, “and it appears that the steel was removed in the study, since we found the ivory handle there.”

After a moment she lifted her chin and looked directly at him. “It is with the greatest reluctance that I remind you of the presence of Mr. Bellairs in this house last night. I believe he was in the study with my husband after dinner. He had ample opportunity to return there.”

“According to Lord Pastern’s time-table, to which you have all subscribed, he had from about a quarter to ten until half past when, with the exception of Rivera and Mr. Edward Manx, the rest of the party was upstairs. Mr. Manx, I remember, said he was in the drawing-room during this period. He had, by the way, punched Rivera on the ear shortly beforehand.”

“Ah!” Lady Pastern breathed out her small ejaculation. She took a moment or two over digesting this information and Alleyn thought she was very well pleased with it. She said, “Dear Edward is immensely impulsive.”

“He was annoyed, I gather, because Rivera had taken it upon himself to kiss Miss Wayne.”

Alleyn would have given a lot to have Lady Pastern’s thoughts floating above her head in clear letters, encased by a balloon as in one of Troy’s little drawings, or to have heard them through spectral earphones. Were there four elements? Desire that Manx should be concerned only with Félicité? Gratification that Manx should have gone for Rivera? Resentment that Carlisle and not Félicité had been the cause? And fear — fear that Manx should be more gravely involved? Or some deeper fear?

“Unfortunately,” she said, “he was a totally impossible person. It is, I feel certain, an affair of no significance. Dear Edward.”

Alleyn said abruptly, “Do you ever see a magazine called Harmony?” and was startled by her response. Her eyes widened. She looked at him as if he had uttered some startling impropriety.

“Never!” she said loudly. “Certainly not. Never.”

“There is a copy in the house. I thought perhaps…”

“The servants may take it. I believe it is the kind of thing they read.”

“The copy I saw was in the study. It has a correspondence page, conducted by someone who calls himself G.P.F.”

“I have not seen it. I do not concern myself with this journal.”

“Then,” Alleyn said, “there’s not much point in my asking if you suspected that Edward Manx was G.P.F.”

It was not possible for Lady Pastern to leap to her feet: her corsets alone prevented such an exercise. But, with formidable energy and comparative speed, she achieved a standing position. He saw with astonishment that her bosom heaved and that her neck and face were suffused with a brickish red.

“Impossible!” she panted. “Never! I shall never believe it. An insufferable suggestion.”

“I don’t quite see…” Alleyn began but she shouted him down. “Outrageous! He is utterly incapable.” She shot a fusillade of adjectives at him. “I cannot discuss such a fantasy. Incredible! Monstrous! Libellous. Libel of the grossest kind. Never!”

“But why do you say that? On account of the literary style?” Lady Pastern’s mouth twice opened and shut. She stared at him with an air of furious indecision. “You may say so,” she said at last. “You may put it in that way. Certainly. On account of style.”

“And yet you have never read the magazine?”

“Obviously it is a vulgar publication. I have seen the cover.”

“Let me tell you,” Alleyn suggested, “how the theory has arisen. I really should like you to understand that it’s not based on guesswork. May we sit down?”

She sat down abruptly. He saw, and was bewildered to see, that she was trembling. He told her about the letter Félicité had received and showed her the copy he had made. He reminded her of the white flower in Manx’s coat and of Félicité’s change of manner after she had seen it. He said that Félicité believed Manx to be G.P.F. and had admitted as much. He said they had discovered original drafts of articles that had subsequently appeared on G.P.F.’s page and that these drafts had been typed on the machine in the study. He reminded her that Manx had stayed at Duke’s Gate for three weeks. Throughout this recital she sat bolt upright, pressing her lips together and staring, inexplicably, at the top right-hand drawer of her desk. In some incomprehensible fashion he was dealing her blow after shrewd blow, but he kept on and finished the whole story. “So you see, don’t you,” he ended, “that, at least, it’s a probability?”

“Have you asked him?” she said pallidly. “What does he say?”

“I have not asked him yet. I shall do so. Of course, the whole question of his identity with G.P.F. may be irrelevant as far as this case is concerned.”

“Irrelevant!” she ejaculated as if the suggestion were wildly insane. She was looking again at her desk. Every muscle of her face was controlled but tears now began to form in her eyes and trickle over her cheeks.

“I’m sorry,” Alleyn said, “that you find this distressing.”

“It distresses me,” she said, “because I find it is true. I am in some confusion of mind. If there is nothing more…”

He got up at once. “There’s nothing more,” he said. “Good-bye, Lady Pastern.”

She recalled him before he reached the door. “One moment.”

“Yes?”

“Let me assure you, Mr. Alleyn,” she said, pressing her handkerchief against her cheek, “that my foolishness is entirely unimportant. It is a personal matter. What you have told me is quite irrelevant to this affair. It is of no consequence whatever, in fact.” She drew in her breath with a sound that quivered between a sigh and a sob. “As for the identity of the person who has perpetrated this outrage — I mean the murder, not the journalism — I am persuaded it was one of his own kind. Yes, certainly,” she said more vigorously, “one of his own kind. You may rest assured of that.” And finding himself dismissed, he left her.

As Alleyn approached the first landing on his way down he was surprised to hear the ballroom piano. It was being played somewhat unhandily and the strains were those of hotly syncopated music taken at a funeral pace. Detective-Sergeant Jimson was on duty on the landing. Alleyn jerked his head at the ballroom doors, which were ajar. “Who’s that playing?” he asked. “Is it Lord Pastern? Who the devil opened that room?”