She waited for a second or two and then nodded. “I’ve read them,” she said. “They’re fantastic, lovely letters. They can’t possibly have anything at all to do with any of this. Not possibly.”

“I’ve seen the regimental group photograph.”

“Mrs. Jim told me.”

“He was very good-looking, wasn’t he?”

“Yes. They used to call him Beau Carter. It’s hard to believe when you see Claude, isn’t it? He was only twenty-one when his first wife died. Producing Claude. Such an awful waste, I’ve always thought. Much better if it’d been the other way round though of course in that case I would have been — just not. Or would I? How muddling.”

She glanced down the long room to where Mr. Fox, at its furthest extreme, having put on his spectacles, was bent over a glass-topped curio table. “What’s he doing?” she whispered.

“Being tactful.”

“Oh. I see.”

“About your mother — did she often speak of her first husband?”

“Not often. I think she got out of the way of it when my papa was alive. I think he must have been jealous, poor love. He wasn’t exactly a heart-throb to look at, himself. You know — pink and portly. So I think she kept things like pre-papa photographs and letters discreetly out of circulation. Sort of. But she did tell me about Maurice — that was his name.”

“About his soldiering days? During the war when I suppose that photograph was taken?”

“Yes. A bit about him. Why?”

“About his brother officers, for instance? Or the men under him?”

“Why?” Prunella insisted. “Don’t be like those awful pressmen who keep bawling out rude questions that haven’t got anything to do with the case. Not,” she added hastily, “that you’d really do that because you’re not at all that kind. But, I mean what on earth can my mum’s first husband’s brother officers and men have to do with his wife’s murder when most of them are dead, I daresay, themselves?”

“His soldier-servant, for instance? Was there anything in the letters about him? The officer-batman relationship can be, in its way, quite a close one.”

“Now you mention it,” said Prunella on a note of impatience, “there were jokey bits about somebody he called The Corp, who I suppose might have been his servant but they weren’t anything out of the way. In the last letter, for instance. It was written here. He’d got an unexpected leave and come home but Mummy was with her WRENS in Scotland. It says he’s trying to get a call through to her but will leave the letter in case he doesn’t. It breaks off abruptly saying he’s been recalled, urgently to London and has just time to get to the station. I expect you know about the train being bombed.”

“Yes. I know.”

“Well,” said Prunella shortly, “it was a direct hit. On his carriage. So that’s all.”

“And what about The Corp? In the letter?”

“What? Oh. There’s a very effing bit about — sorry,” said Prunella. “ ‘Effing’ is family slang for ‘affecting’ or kind of ‘terribly touching.’ This bit is about what she’s to do if he’s killed and how much — how he feels about her and she’s not to worry and anyway The Corp looks after him like a nanny. He must have been rather a super chap, Maurice, I always think.”

“Anything about the Black Alexander?”

“Oh, that! Well — actually, yes, there is something. He says he supposes she’ll think him a fuss-pot but, after all, his London bank’s in the hottest blitz area and he’s taken the stamp out and will store it elsewhere. There’s something about it being in a waterproof case or something. It was at that point he got the urgent recall to London. So he breaks off — and — says goodbye. Sort of.”

“And the stamp was never found.”

“That’s right. Not for want of looking. But obviously he had it on him.”

“Miss Foster, I wouldn’t ask you this if it wasn’t important and I hope you won’t mind very much that I do ask. Will you let me see those letters?”

Prunella looked at her own hands. They were clenched tightly on her handkerchief and she hurriedly relaxed them. The handkerchief lay in a small damply crumpled heap in her lap. Alleyn saw where a fingernail had bitten into it.

“I simply can’t imagine why,” she said. “I mean, it’s fantastic. Love letters, pure and simple, written almost forty years ago and concerning nothing and nobody but the writer. And Mummy, of course.”

“I know. It seems preposterous, doesn’t it? But I can’t tell you how ‘professional’ and detached I shall be about it. Rather like a doctor. Please let me see them.”

She glanced at the distant Fox, still absorbed in the contents of the curio table. “I don’t want to make a fuss about nothing,” she said. “I’ll get them.”

“Are they still in the not-so-secret, secret drawer of the converted sofa-table?”

“Yes.”

“I should like to see it.”

They had both risen.

“Secret drawers,” said Alleyn lightly, “are my specialty. At the Yard they call me Peeping Tom Alleyn.” Prunella compressed her lips. “Fox,” Alleyn said loudly, “may I tear you away?”

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Alleyn,” Fox said, removing his spectacles but staying where he was. “I beg your pardon, Miss Foster. My attention was caught by this — should I call it specimen table? My aunt, Miss Elsie Smith, has just such another in her shop in Brighton.”

“Really?” said Prunella and stared at him.

Alleyn strolled down to the other end of the room and bent over the table. It contained a heterogeneous collection of medals, a vinaigrette, two miniatures, several little boxes in silver or cloisonné and one musical box, all set out on a blue velvet base.

“I’m always drawn to these assemblies,” Alleyn said. “They are family history in hieroglyphics. I see you’ve rearranged them lately.”

“No, I haven’t. Why?” asked Prunella, suddenly alerted. She joined them. It was indeed clear from indentations in the velvet that a rearrangement had taken place. “Damn!” she said. “At it again! No, it’s too much.”

“At it?” Alleyn ventured. “Again? Who?”

“Claude Carter. I suppose you know he’s staying here. He — does so fiddle and pry.”

“What does he pry into?”

“All over the place. He’s always like that. The old plans of this house and garden. Drawers in tables. He turns over other people’s letters when they come. I wouldn’t put him past reading them. I’m not living here at the moment so I daresay he’s having field days. I don’t know why I’m talking about it.”

“Is he in the house at this moment?”

“I don’t know. I’ve only just come in, myself. Never mind. Forget it. Do you want to see the letters?”

She walked out of the room, Alleyn opening the door for her. He followed her into the hall and up the staircase.

“How happy Mr. Markos will be,” he remarked, “climbing up the golden stairs. They are almost golden, aren’t they? Where the sun catches them?”

“I haven’t noticed.”

“Oh, but you should. You mustn’t allow ownership to dull the edge of appetite. One should always know how lucky one is.”

Prunella turned on the upper landing and stared at him.

“Is it your habit,” she asked, “to go on like this? When you’re on duty?”

“Only if I dare hope for a sympathetic reception. What happens now? Turn right, proceed in a westerly direction and effect an entrance?”

Since this was in fact what had to be done, Prunella said nothing and led the way into her mother’s bedroom.

A sumptuous room. There was a canopied bed and a silken counterpane with a lacy nightgown case topped up by an enormous artificial rose. A largesse of white bearskin rugs. But for all its luxury the room had a depleted air as if the heart had gone out of it. One of the wardrobe doors was open and disclosed complete emptiness.

Prunella said rapidly: “I sent everything, all the clothes, away to the nearest professional theatre. They can sell the things they don’t use: fur hats and coats and things.”