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house?”
    “I — let me think for a moment. No, I can’t remember; but usually we come up in dribbles. Some of them go on working, and they have to clean up their palettes and so on. Wait a second. Katti and I came up together before the others. That’s all I can tell you.”
    “Would the studio be locked before you went to London?”
    “No.” Troy turned her head and looked squarely at him.
    “Why not?” asked Alleyn.
    “Because of Garcia.”
    “Blackman told me about Garcia. He stayed behind, didn’t he?”
    “Yes.”
    “Alone?”
    “Yes,” said Troy unhappily. “Quite alone.”
    There was a tap at the door. It opened and Blackman appeared, silhouetted against the brightly lit hall.
    “The doctor’s here, Mr. Alleyn, and I think the car from London is just arriving.”
    “Right,” said Alleyn. “I’ll come.”
    Blackman moved away. Alleyn rose and looked down at Troy in her arm-chair.
    “Perhaps I may see you again before I go?”
    “I’ll be in here or with the others in the dining-room. It’s a bit grim sitting round there under the eye of the village constable.”
    “I hope it won’t be for very long,” said Alleyn.
    Troy suddenly held out her hand.
    “I’m glad it’s you,” she said.
    They shook hands.
    “I’ll try to be as inoffensive as possible,” Alleyn told her. “Good-bye for the moment.”

CHAPTER V
Routine
    When Alleyn returned to the hall he found it full of men. The Scotland Yard officials had arrived, and with their appearance the case, for the first time, seemed to take on a familiar complexion. The year he had spent away from England clicked back into the past at the sight of those familiar overcoated and bowler-hatted figures with their cases and photographic impedimenta. There, beaming at him, solid, large, the epitome of horse-sense, was old Fox.
    “Very nice indeed to have you with us again, sir.”
    “Fox, you old devil, how are you?”
    And there, looking three degrees less morose, was Detective-Sergeant Bailey, and behind him Detective-Sergeant Thompson. A gruff chorus began:
    “Very nice indeed— ”
    A great shaking of hands, while Superintendent Blackman looked on amicably, and then a small, clean, bald man came forward. Blackman introduced him.
    “Inspector Alleyn, this is Dr. Ampthill, our divisional surgeon.”
    “How d’you do, Mr. Alleyn? Understand you want to see me. Sorry if I’ve kept you waiting.”
    “I’ve not long arrived,” said Alleyn. “Let’s have a look at the scene of action, shall we?”
    Blackman led the way down the hall to a side passage at the end of which there was a door. Blackman unlocked it and ushered them through. They were in the garden. The smell of box borders came up from their feet. It was very dark.
    “Shall I lead the way?” suggested Blackman.
    A long pencil of light from a torch picked up a section of flagged path. They tramped along in single file. Tree trunks started up out of the darkness, leaves brushed Alleyn’s cheek. Presently a rectangle of deeper dark loomed up.
    Blackman said: “You there, Sligo?”
    “Yes, sir,” said a voice close by.
    There was a jangle of keys, the sound of a door opening.
    “Wait till I find the light switch,” said Blackman. “Here we are.”
    The lights went up. They walked round the wooden screen inside the door, and found themselves in the studio.
    Alleyn’s first impression was of a reek of paint and turpentine, and of a brilliant and localised glare. Troy had installed a high-powered lamp over the throne. This lamp was half shaded, so that it cast all its light on the throne, rather as the lamp above an operating-table is concentrated on the patient. Blackman had only turned on one switch, so the rest of the studio was in darkness. The effect at the moment could scarcely have been more theatrical. The blue drape, sprawled across the throne, was so brilliant that it hurt the eyes. The folds fell sharply from the cushion into a flattened mass. In the middle,