“I’m sorry,” he said. “Touch of migraine. Yes. The tablets. She took them with Scotch, you know. As you say, they dissolve readily in alcohol.”

“Then wouldn’t you think these would have dissolved in her mouth?”

“I would think that she didn’t take any more Scotch with them. Obviously, or she would have swallowed them.”

“You mean that she was conscious enough to put these four in her mouth but not conscious enough to drink or to swallow them? Yes,” said Alleyn. “I see.”

“Well,” Dr. Schramm said loudly, “what else? What do you suppose?”

“I? I don’t go in for supposing: we’re not allowed. Oh, by the way, do you know if Mrs. Foster had made a Will — recently, I mean?”

“Of that,” said Dr. Schramm, “I have no idea.” And after a brief pause: “Is there anything else?”

“Do you know if there are members of the staff here called G. M. Johnson and Marleena Briggs?”

“I have not the faintest idea. I have nothing to do with the management of the hotel.”

“Of course you haven’t. Stupid of me. I’ll ask elsewhere. If it’s convenient could we look at the room?”

“I’ll take you up.” He pressed a buzzer on his desk.

“Please don’t bother. Tell me the number and we’ll find our way.”

“No, no. Wouldn’t dream of it.”

These protestations were interrupted by the entrance of the nurse. She stood inside the door, her important bosom, garnished with its professional badge, well to the fore. A handsome, slightly florid lady, specifically plentiful.

“Oh, Sister,” said Dr. Schramm, “would you be very kind and hold the fort? I’m just going to show our visitors upstairs. I’m expecting that call from New York.”

“Certainly,” she said woodenly.

Alleyn said: “You must be Sister Jackson, mustn’t you? I’m very glad to see you. Would you be very kind and give us a moment or two?”

She looked fixedly at Dr. Schramm, who said grudgingly: “Chief Superintendent Alleyn.”

“And Inspector Fox,” said Alleyn. “Perhaps, as Dr. Schramm expects his long distance call, it won’t be troubling you too much to ask you to show us the way to Mrs. Foster’s room?”

She still looked at Dr. Schramm, who began: “No, that’s all right, I’ll—” when the telephone rang. Sister Jackson made a half-move as if to answer it but he picked up the receiver.

“Yes. Yes. Speaking. Yes, I accept the call.”

Alleyn said: “Shall we?” to Sister Jackson and opened the door.

Schramm nodded to her and with the suggestion of a bridle she led the way back to the hall.

“Do we take the lift?” Alleyn asked. ‘I’d be very much obliged if you would come. There are one or two points about the room that I don’t quite get from the reports. We’ve been asked by the local Force to take a look at the general picture. A formality, really, but the powers-that-be are always rather fussy in these sorts of cases.”

“Oh yes?” said Sister Jackson.

In the lift it became apparent that she used scent.

For all her handsome looks, she was a pretty tough lady, Alleyn thought. Black, sharp eyes and a small hard mouth, set at the corners. It wouldn’t be long before she settled into the battle-axe form.

The room, Number 20, was on the second floor at the end of a passage and at a corner of the building. The Quintern police had put a regulation seal on the door and had handed the key over to Alleyn. They had also taken the precaution of slipping an inconspicuous morsel of wool between door and jamb. Sister Jackson looked on in silence while Mr. Fox, who wore gloves, dealt with these obstructions.

The room was dark, the closed window curtains admitting only a sliver or two of daylight. It smelt thickly of material, carpet, stale scent, dust and of something indefinable and extremely unpleasant. Sister Jackson gave out a short hiss of distaste. Fox switched on the lights. He and Alleyn moved into the centre of the room. Sister Jackson remained by the door.

The room had an air of suspended animation. The bed was unmade. Its occupant might have just left it to go into the bathroom. One of the pillows and the lower sheet were stained as if something had been spilt on them. Another pillow lay, face-down, at the foot of the bed. The bottle of Scotch, glass and tablets were all missing and were no doubt still in the custody of the local police, but an unwrapped parcel, obviously a book, together with a vanity box and the half-empty box of marzipan confections lay on the table alongside a lamp. Alleyn peered down the top of a rose-coloured shade and saw the glass slipper in place over the bulb. He took it off and examined it. There was no oil left but it retained a faint reek of sweet almonds. He put it aside.

The dressing-table carried, together with an array of bottles and pots, three framed photographs, all of which he had seen that morning on and in Sybil Foster’s desk at Quintern: her pretty daughter, her second husband; the regimental group with her handsome young first husband prominent among the officers. This was a less faded print and Alleyn looked closely at it, marvelling that such an Adonis could have sired the undelicious Claude. He peered at an enormous corporal in the back row who squinted amicably back at him. Alleyn managed to make out the man’s badge: antlers enclosed by something — what? — a heather wreath? Wasn’t there some nickname? “The Spikes”? That was it. “The Duke of Montrose’s” nicknamed “The Spikes.” Alleyn wondered how soon after this photograph was taken Maurice Carter had died. Claude would have been a child of three or four, he supposed, and remembered Verity Preston’s story of the lost Black Alexander stamp. What the hell is it, he thought, still contemplating the large corporal, that’s nagging on the edge of my memory.

He went into the bathroom. A large bunch of dead lilies lay in the hand-basin. A dirty greenish stain showed where water had drained away. A new and offensive smell rose from the basin. “ ‘Lilies that fester,’ ” he reminded himself, “ ‘smell far worse than weeds.’ ”

He returned to the bedroom and found Fox, placid in attendance, and Sister Jackson looking resentful.

“And this,” Alleyn said, “is how it was when you were called in?”

“The things on the table have been removed. And there’s no body,” she pointed out sourly.

“No more there is.”

“It’s disgusting,” said Sister Jackson. “Being left like this.”

“Horrid, isn’t it? Could you just give us a picture of how things were when you arrived on the scene?”

She did so, eyeing him closely and with a certain air of appraisal. It emerged that she had been in her room and thinking of retiring when Dr. Schramm telephoned her, asking her to come at once to Number 20. There she found him stooping over the bed on which lay Mrs. Foster, dead and cooling. Dr. Schramm had drawn her attention to the table and its contents and told her to go to the surgery and fetch the equipment needed to empty the stomach. She was to do this without saying anything to anyone she met.

“We knew it was far too late to be of any use,” she said, “but we did it. Dr. Schramm said the contents should be kept and they were. In a sealed jar. We had to move the table away from the bed but nothing else was disturbed. Dr. Schramm was very particular about that. Very.”

“And then?”

“We informed Mr. Delaware, the manager. He was upset, of course. They don’t like that sort of thing. Then we got Dr. Field-Innis to come over from Upper Quintern and he said the police should be informed. We couldn’t see why but he said he thought they ought to be. So they were.”

Alleyn noticed the increased usage of the first person plural in this narrative and wondered if he only imagined that it sounded possessive.

He thanked Sister Jackson warmly and handed her a glossy photograph of Mr. Fox’s Aunt Elsie which was kept for this purpose. Aunt Elsie had become a kind of code-person between Alleyn and Fox and was sometimes used as a warning signal when one of them wished to alert the other without being seen to do so. Sister Jackson failed to identify Aunt Elsie and was predictably intrigued. He returned the photograph to its envelope and said they needn’t trouble her any longer. Having dropped his handkerchief over his hand, he opened the door to her.