“I see,” Alleyn said. “And the shooting-stick was used—?”

“My dear chap, in the normal way, one must suppose.”

“Yes, one must, mustn’t one? Deliberately pushed home and sat on. Horrid — awful behavior.”

“Brutal,” Dr. Curtis said dispassionately.

“All the brutality in the world. Has Willy tackled the fish scales?”

“Give him time. But yes, he’s begun. No report yet.”

“We’re going to Nunspardon. Telephone me if there’s anything, Curtis, will you? You or Willy?”

“O.K.”

Alleyn turned away from the telephone to discover Sergeant Bailey waiting for him with the air of morose detachment that meant he had something of interest to impart. He had, in fact, come from a further detailed overhaul of Colonel Cartarette’s study. The bottom drawer on the left of the desk carried an identifiable finger-print of Sir George Lacklander’s.

“I checked it with his grog glass,” Bailey said, looking at his boots. “The drawer seems to have been wiped over, but a dab on the underside must have been missed or something. It’s his all right.”

“Very useful,” Alleyn said.

Fox wore that expression of bland inscrutability that always seemed to grow upon him as a case approached its close. He would listen attentively to witnesses, suspects, colleagues or his chief and would presently glance up and move the focus of his gaze to some distant object of complete unimportance. This mannerism had the same effect as a change of conversation. It was as if Mr. Fox had become rather pleasurably abstracted. To his associates it was a sign of a peculiar wiliness.

“Remove your attention from the far horizon, Br’er Fox,” Alleyn said, “and bring it to bear on the immediate future. We’re going to Nunspardon.”

They were taken there by the Yard driver, who was now released from his duties in Bottom Meadow.

As they drove past the long wall that marked the Nunspardon marches, Fox began to speculate. “Do you suppose that they throw it open to the public? They must, mustn’t they? Otherwise, how do they manage these days?”

“They manage by a freak. Within the last two generations the Lacklanders have won first prizes in world lotteries. I remember because I was still in the Foreign Service when George Lacklander rang the bell in the Calcutta Sweep. In addition to that, they’re fantastically lucky race-horse owners and possess one of the most spectacular collections of private jewels in England, which I suppose they could use as a sort of lucky dip if they felt the draught. Really, they’re one of the few remaining country families who are wealthy through sheer luck.”

“Is that so?” Fox observed mildly. “And Miss Kettle tells me they’ve stood high in the county for something like a thousand years. Never a scandal, she says, but then I daresay she’s partial.”

“I daresay. A thousand years,” Alleyn said dryly, “is a tidy reach even for the allegedly blameless Lacklanders.”

“Well, to Miss Kettle’s knowledge there’s never been the slightest hint of anything past or present.”

“When, for the love of wonder, did you enjoy this cosy chat with Nurse Kettle?”

“Last evening, Mr. Alleyn. When you were in the study, you know, Miss Kettle, who was saying at the time that the Colonel was quite one of the old sort, a real gentleman and so on, mentioned that she and her ladyship had chatted on the subject only that afternoon!” Fox stopped, scraped his chin and became abstracted.

“What’s up? What subject?”

“Well, er — class obligation and that style of thing. It didn’t seem to amount to anything last night, because at that stage no connection had been established with the family.”

“Come on.”

“Miss Kettle mentioned in passing that her ladyship had talked about the — er — the — er — as you might say — the — er — principle of ‘noblesse oblige’ and had let it be known she was very worried.”

“About what?”

“No particular cause was named.”

“And you’re wondering now if she was worried about the prospect of an imminent debunking through Chapter 7 of the blameless Lacklanders?”

“Well, it makes you think,” Fox said.

“So it does,” Alleyn agreed as they turned into the long drive to Nunspardon.

“She being a great lady.”

“Are you reminding me of her character, her social position or what Mr. Phinn calls her avoirdupois?”

“She must be all of seventeen stone,” Fox mused, “and I wouldn’t mind betting the son’ll be the same at her age. Very heavy-built.”

“And damn’ heavy going into the bargain.”

“Mrs. Cartarette doesn’t seem to think so.”

“My dear man, as you have already guessed, he’s the only human being in the district, apart from her husband, who’s sent her out any signals of any kind at all, and he’s sent plenty.”

“You don’t reckon she’s in love with him, though?”

“You never know — never. I daresay he has his ponderous attractions.”

“Ah, well,” Fox said and with an air of freshening himself up stared at a point some distance ahead. It was impossible to guess whether he ruminated upon the tender passion, the character of George Lacklander or the problematical gratitude of Kitty Cartarette. “You never know,” he sighed, “he may even be turning it over in his mind how long he ought to wait before it’ll be all right to propose to her.”

“I hardly think so, and I must say I hope she’s not building on it.”

“You’ve made up your mind, of course,” Fox said after a pause.

“Well, I have, Fox. I can only see one answer that will fit all the evidence, but unless we get the go-ahead sign from the experts in Chyning, we haven’t a case. There we are again.”

They had rounded the final bend in the drive and had come out before the now familiar façade of Nunspardon.

The butler admitted them and contrived to suggest with next to no expenditure of behaviour that Alleyn was a friend of the family and Fox completely invisible. Sir George, he said, was still at luncheon. If Alleyn would step this way, he would inform Sir George. Alleyn, followed by the unmoved Fox, was shown into George Lacklander’s study: the last of the studies they were to visit. It still bore, Alleyn recognized, the imprint of Sir Harold Lacklander’s personality, and he looked with interest at a framed caricature of his erstwhile chief made a quarter of a century ago when Alleyn was a promising young man in the Foreign Service. The drawing revived his memories of Sir Harold Lacklander; of his professional charm, his conformation to type, his sudden flashes of wit and his extreme sensitiveness to criticism. There was a large photograph of George on the desk, and it was strange to see in it, as Alleyn fancied he could, these elements adulterated and transformed by the addition of something that was either stupidity or indifference. Stupidity? Was George, after all, such an ass? It depended, as usual, on “what one meant” by an ass.

At this point in Alleyn’s meditations, George himself, looking huffily postprandial, walked, in. His expression was truculent.

“I should have thought, I must say, Alleyn,” he said, “that one’s luncheon hour at least might be left to one.”

“I’m sorry,” Alleyn said, “I thought you’d finished. Do you smoke between the courses, perhaps?”

Lacklander angrily pitched his cigarette into the fireplace. “I wasn’t hungry,” he said.

“In that case I am relieved that I didn’t, after all, interrupt you.”

“What are you driving at? I’m damned if I like your tone, Alleyn. What do you want?”

“I want,” Alleyn said, “the truth. I want the truth about what you did yesterday evening. I want the truth about what you did when you went to Hammer Farm last night. I want the truth, and I think I have it, about Chapter 7 of your father’s memoirs. A man has been murdered. I am a policeman and I want facts.”

“None of these matters has anything to do with Cartarette’s death,” Lacklander said and wet his lips.