“By Chubb!”

“He — ah — he ’does for’ the Cockburn-Montforts on Friday afternoons. There’s nothing in that, you know, Alleyn. The Chubbs have one or two, as it were, casual jobs about the neighbourhood. They baby-sit every other Sunday at No. 17, for instance. It’s an arrangement.”

“And Mrs. Chubb obliges your tenant in the basement, doesn’t she?”

“An hour every other day. She will give us tea, by the way.” He glanced at the clock. “Any second now. I asked for it very early, hoping you would join me. Mrs. Alleyn said something about your not having had time for luncheon.”

“How very kind, I shall enjoy it.”

Lucy, after some preparatory clawing at the foot of the door into the hall, succeeded in opening it wide enough to make an exit, which she effected with her tail up and an ambiguous remark.

“Sometimes,” said Mr. Whippiest one, “I’ve felt almost inclined to pump the Chubbs.”

“About Sheridan and the Cockburn-Montforts?”

“Discreetly. Yes. But of course one doesn’t do that sort of thing. Or,” Mr. Whipplestone said with a self-deprecatory lift of his hand, “I don’t.”

“No,” Alleyn said, “I don’t suppose you do. Do you mind, though, if I have a word with Mrs. Chubb?”

“Here? Now?” he said, evidently dismayed by the suggestion.

“Well — later if you’d rather.”

“She’s awfully upset. About Chubb being man-handled by that black waiter and interviewed afterwards.”

“I’ll try not to add to her woes. It really is just routine, Sam, as far as I know.”

“Well, I do hope it doesn’t turn out to be — anything else. Sh!”

He held up his finger. From somewhere outside the room came a series of intermittent bumps or taps. They grew louder.

Alleyn went to the door left ajar by Lucy Lockett and looked out.

To see Lucy herself backing down the stairs crab-wise and dragging some small object by a chain. It bumped from step to wooden step. When she arrived at the bottom she contrived with some difficulty to take the object up in her mouth. Giving out distorted mews, she passed Alleyn, re-entered the drawing-room, and dropped her trophy at Mr. Whipplestone’s feet

“Oh no, oh no!” he cried out. “Not again. For pity’s sake, not again!”

But it was, in fact, a white pottery fish.

While he still gazed at it with the liveliest dismay, a clink of china sounded in the passage. With extraordinary swiftness Alleyn scooped up the fish and dropped it in his pocket.

“Not a word,” he said.

Mrs. Chubb came in with a tea-tray.

Alleyn gave her good-afternoon and brought forward a small table to Mr. Whipplestone’s chair. “Is this the right drill?” he asked, and she thanked him nervously and set down her tray. When she had left and he had heard her go upstairs he said: “It’s not Sheridan’s fish. She brought it from above.”

Mr. Whipplestone’s jaw dropped. He stared at Alleyn as if he had never seen him before. “Show me,” he said at last.

Alleyn produced the object and dangled it by its chain in front of Mr. Whipplestone, who said: “Yes. It is. I’ve remembered.”

“What have you remembered?”

“I think I told you. The first time she stole it. Or rather one like it. From down below. I had the curious feeling I’d seen it before. And then again, that evening when I returned it to Sheridan. Round that ghastly fellow Sanskrit’s fat neck. The same feeling. Now I’ve remembered: it was on the day I inspected the premises. The fish was in the Chubbs’ room upstairs. Hanging from a photograph of a girl with black ribbon attached to the frame. Rather morbid. And this,” said Mr. Whipplestone, ramming home his point, “is it.” He actually covered his face with his hands. “And that,” he said, “is very uncomfortable news.”

“It may turn out to be of no great matter after all. I wouldn’t get too up-tight about it, if I were you. This may simply be the outward and visible sign of some harmlessly potty little cult they all belong to.”

“Yes, but Chubb? And those dubious — those more than dubious Cockburn-Montforts and those frankly appalling Sanskrits. No, I don’t like it,” said Mr. Whipplestone. “I don’t like it at all.” His distracted gaze fell upon Lucy, who was posed tidily couchant with her paws tucked under her chest. “And the cat!” he remembered. “The cat, of whose reprehensible habits I say nothing, took fright at the very sight of that ghastly pair. She bolted. And the Pirellis at the Napoli think she belonged to the Sanskrit woman. And she had been ill-treated.”

“I don’t quite see…”

“Very well. Very well. Let it pass. Have some tea,” Mr. Whipplestone distractedly invited, “and tell me what you propose to do about that thing: that medallion, that — fish.”

Alleyn took it from his pocket and turned it over in his hand. A trademark like a wavy X had been fired into the reverse side.

“Roughish little job,” he said. “Lucky she didn’t break it. If you don’t mind, I think I’ll go upstairs and return it to its owner. It gives me the entrée, doesn’t it?”

“I suppose so. Yes. Well. If you must.”

“It’ll save you a rather tricky confrontation, Sam.”

“Yes. Thank you. Very good. Yes.”

“I’ll nip up before she has time to return to her kitchen. Which is their sitting-room?”

“First door on the landing.”

“Right.”

He left Mr. Whipplestone moodily pouring tea, climbed the stairs, and tapped at the door.

After a pause it was opened by Mrs. Chubb, who stared at him with something like terror in her eyes. He asked her if he might come in for a moment, and for a split second wondered if she was going to say no and shut the door in his face. But she stood aside with her fingers at her lips and he went in.

He saw, at once, the photograph on the wall. A girl of about sixteen with a nice, round, fresh-looking face very like Mrs. Chubb’s. The black ribbons had been made into rosettes and fastened to the top corners of the frame. On the photograph itself, neatly written, was a legend: April 4, 1953-May 1, 1969.

Alleyn took the medallion from his pocket. Mrs. Chubb made a strange little falsetto noise in her throat.

He said: “I’m afraid Lucy has been up to her tricks again. Mr. Whipplestone tells me she’s done this sort of thing before. Extraordinary animals, cats, aren’t they? Once they get a notion into their heads, there’s no stopping them. It belongs here, doesn’t it?”

She made no move to take it. A drawing-pin lay on the table under the photograph. Alleyn pushed it back into its hole and looped the chain over it. “The cat must have pulled it out,” he said, and then: “Mrs. Chubb, you’re feeling poorly, aren’t you? I’m so sorry. Sit down, won’t you, and let me see if I can do something about it? Would you like a drink of water? No. Then, do sit down.”

He put his hand under her arm. She was standing in front of a chair and dropped into it as if she couldn’t help herself. She was as white as a sheet and trembling.

Alleyn drew up another chair for himself.

“Mr. Whipplestone told me you’d been very much upset by what happened last night and now I’m afraid I’ve gone and made matters worse,” he said.

Still she didn’t speak, and he went on: “I don’t expect you know who I am. It was I who interviewed your husband last night. I’m an old friend of Mr. Whipplestone’s and I know how greatly he values your service.”

Mrs. Chubb whispered: “The police?”

“Yes, but there’s no need to worry about that. Really.”

“He set on ’im,” she said. “That—” she shut her eyes for a second—“black man. Set on ’im.”

“I know. He told me.”

“It’s the truth.” And with startling force she repeated this, loudly. “It’s the truth. Sir. Do you believe that, sir? Do you believe it’s the truth?”

Alleyn thought: “ ‘Do I believe this, do I believe the other thing?’ Everybody asking what one believes. The word becomes meaningless. It’s what one knows that matters in this muddle.” He waited for a moment and then said. “A policeman may only believe what he finds out for himself, without any possible doubt, to be true. If your husband was attacked, as he says he was, we shall find out.”