“I’m told there’d be a revolution of sorts, that mercenaries would be sent in, a puppet government set up, and that in the upshot the big interests would return and take over.”

“Yes. Well, there’s that aspect and then again you might get the solitary fanatic. He’s the type I really do not like,” Gibson said, indignantly drawing a nice distinction between potential assassins. “No record, as likely as not. You don’t know where to look for him.”

“You’ve got the guest list of course.”

“Of course. I’ll show it to you. Wait a sec.”

He fished it out of an inner pocket and they conned it over. Gibson had put a tick beside some five dozen names.

“They’ve all been on the Ng’ombwanan scene in one capacity or another,” he said. “From the oil barons at the top to ex-business men at the bottom, and nearly all of them have been or are in process of being kicked out. The big idea behind this reception seems to be a sort of ‘nothing personal intended’ slant. ‘Everybody loves everybody’ and please come to my party!”

“It hurts me more than it does you?”

“That’s right. And they’ve all accepted, what’s more.”

“Hullo!” Alleyn exclaimed, pointing to the list. “They’ve asked him!”

“Which is that? Ah. Yes. Him. Now, he has got a record.”

“See the list your people kindly supplied to me,” Alleyn said, and produced it.

“That’s right. Not for violence, of course, but a murky background and no error. Nasty bit of work. I don’t much fancy him.”

“His sister makes pottery pigs about one minute away from the Embassy,” said Alleyn.

“I know that. Very umpty little dump. You’d wonder why, wouldn’t you, with all the money he must have made in Ng’ombwana.”

“Has he still got it, though? Mightn’t he be broke?”

“Hard to say. Question of whether he laid off his bets before the troubles began.”

“Do you know about this one?” Alleyn asked, pointing to the name Whipplestone on the guest list.

Gibson instantly reeled off a thumbnail sketch of Mr. Whipplestone.

“That’s the man,” Alleyn said. “Well now, Fred, this may be a matter of no importance, but you may as well lay back your ears and listen.” And he related Mr. Whipplestone’s story of his cat and the pottery fish. “Whipplestone’s a bit perturbed about it,” he said in the end, “but it may be entirely beside the point as far as we’re concerned. This man in the basement, Sheridan, and the odious Sanskrit may simply meet to play bridge. Or they might belong to some potty little esoteric circle: fortune-telling or spiritism or what have you.”

“That’s what Sanskrit first got borrowed for. Fortune-telling and false pretences. He did his bird for drugs. It was after he came out of stir that he set himself up as a merchant in Ng’ombwana. He’s one of the dispossessed,” said Gibson.

“I know.”

“You do?”

“I think I saw him outside his erstwhile premises when I was there three weeks ago.”

“Fancy that.”

“About the ones that get together to belly-ache in exile — you don’t, I suppose, know of a fish medallion lot?”

“Nah!” said Gibson disgustedly.

“And Mr. Sheridan doesn’t appear on the guest list.

What about a Colonel and Mrs. Montfort? They were in Sheridan’s flat that evening.”

“Here. Let’s see.”

“No,” Alleyn said, consulting the list. “No Montforts under the M’s.”

“Wait a sec. I knew there was something. Look here. Under C. ‘Lt. Col. Cockburn-Montfort, Barset Light Infantry (retd).’ What a name. Cockburn.”

“Isn’t it usually pronounced Coburn?” Alleyn mildly suggested. “Anything about him?”

“ ‘Info.’ Here we are. ‘Organized Ng’ombwanan army. Stationed there from 1960 until Independence in 1971 when present government assumed complete control!’ ”

“Well,” Alleyn said after a longish pause, “it still doesn’t have to amount to anything. No doubt ex-Ng’ombwanan colonials tend to flock together like ex-Anglo-Indians. There may be a little clutch of them in the Capricorns all belly-aching cosily together. What about the staff? The non-Ng’ombwanans, I mean.”

“We’re nothing if not thorough. Every last one’s been accounted for. Want to look?”

He produced a second list. “It shows the Costard employees together. Regulars first, extras afterwards. Clean as whistles, the lot of them.”

“This one?”

Gibson followed Alleyn’s long index finger and read under his breath, “ ‘Employed by Costards as extra waiter over period of ten years. In regular employment as domestic servant. Recent position: eight years. Excellent references. Present employment—’ Hullo, ’ullo.”

“Yes?”

“ ‘Present employment at 1, Capricorn Walk, S.W.3.’ ”

“We seem,” Alleyn said, “to be amassing quite a little clutch of coincidences, don’t we?”

“It’s not often,” Alleyn said to his wife, “that we set ourselves up in this rig, is it?”

“You look as if you did it as a matter of course every night. Like the jokes about Empire builders in the jungle. When there was an Empire. Orders and decorations to boot.”

“What does one mean exactly, by ‘to boot’?”

“You tell me, darling, you’re the purist.”

“I was when I courted my wife.”

Troy, in her green gown, sat on her bed and pulled on her long gloves. “It’s worked out all right,” she said. “Us. Wouldn’t you say?”

“I would say.”

“What a bit of luck for us.”

“All of that.”

He buttoned up her gloves for her. “You look marvellous,” he said. “Shall we go?”

“Is our svelte hired limousine at the door?”

“It is.”

“Whoops, then, hark chivvy away.”

Palace Park Gardens had been closed to general traffic by the police, so the usual crowd of onlookers was not outside the Ng’ombwanan Embassy. The steps were red-carpeted, a flood of light and strains of blameless and dated melodies streamed through the great open doorway. A galaxy of liveried men, black and white, opened car doors and slammed them again.

“Oh Lord, I’ve forgotten the damn’ card!” Troy exclaimed.

“I’ve got it. Here we go.”

The cards, Alleyn saw, were being given a pretty hard look by the men who received them and were handed on to other men seated unobtrusively at tables. He was amused to see, hovering in the background, Superintendent Gibson in tails and a white tie looking a little as if he might be an Old Dominion Plenipotentiary.

Those guests wishing for the cloakrooms turned off to the right and left and on re-entering the hall were martialled back to the end of the double file of Ng’ombwanan guards, where they gave their names to a superb black major-domo who roared them out with all the resonant assurance of a war drum.

Troy and Alleyn had no trappings to shed and passed directly into the channel of approach.

And there, at the far end on the flight of steps leading to the great saloon, was the Boomer himself in state, backed by his spear-carrier and wearing a uniform that might have been inspired by the Napoleonic Old Guard upon whom had been lightly laid the restraining hand of Sandhurst.

Troy muttered: “He’s wonderful. Gosh, he’s glorious!”

“She’d like to paint him,” thought Alleyn.

The patently anxious Ambassador, similarly if less gorgeously uniformed, was stationed on the Boomer’s right. Their personal staff stood about in magnificent attitudes behind them.

“Mis-tar and Mrs. Roderick Alleyn.”

That huge and beguiling smile opened and illuminated the Boomer’s face. He said loudly, “No need for an introduction here,” and took Alleyn’s hands in both his gloved ones.

“And this is the famous wife!” he resonantly proclaimed. “I am so glad. We meet later. I have a favour to ask. Yes?”

The Alleyns moved on, conscious of being the object of a certain amount of covert attention.

“Rory?”

“Yes, I know. Extra special, isn’t he?”

“Whew!”

“What?”

“ ‘Whew.’ Incredulous whistle.”