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virtually lost his senses, Alfred had heard, and had now taken to his bed. Certainly he hadn’t been seen north of Oxford Street since the disaster. Nathaniel hadn’t had anything to do with the firm for years. Randolph Colville could issue no instructions from beyond the grave and Cosmo, confined to Pentonville, could do no better. The younger Colvilles had neither the experience nor the training to make a valuable contribution to the business yet. So who was left? Who would have to carry the burden in the heat of the day? There was only one candidate, Alfred Davis told himself. He looked sadly into the mirror on his wall and found the lucky man.
     
    Powerscourt found Inspector Cooper in Fakenham and took him for tea in the town’s best hotel. The Inspector was working on a more orthodox case now, a burglary and break-in at one of Norfolk’s finest Georgian houses. There was, he told Powerscourt, little chance of finding either the villains or the stolen goods, which he believed had disappeared into the welcoming embrace of London’s antique dealers the day after the crime. The Inspector had never met a private investigator before. He had, he told his new acquaintance, followed one or two of his earlier cases, particularly the one in the West Country cathedral which had featured heavily in the local press. But he was not prepared for Powerscourt’s opening question.
    ‘I gather, Inspector, that you don’t think Cosmo Colville killed his brother.’
    The Inspector blushed. ‘What gave you that idea?’ he stammered after a second or two.
    ‘I can’t tell you that, I’m afraid. I can’t, as the newspapermen are so fond of telling us, I can’t reveal my sources. But it’s true, isn’t it?’
    Albert Cooper thought about what might happen to him if his superiors in the force thought he was giving comfort and indeed assistance to the other side. He thought about his mother and his sisters, dependent on his salary. He thought of his girl, Charlotte, so pretty and so quick when they took their walks together on Sunday afternoons. He thought of the proposal of marriage he was hoping to make on Christmas Eve. Could he throw all that away? For one thing stood out about the young man. It came from his mother and the teachers at his school who had liked him so much. He was a good boy, a regular attender at church on Sundays. Every fibre in his being wanted to tell the truth. He had never expected to be put to the test here over English breakfast tea and scones in the front room of the George Hotel.
    Powerscourt waited. He watched the various emotions flicker over the Inspector’s face. ‘Let me try another question. I have the seating plan from Brympton Hall showing where everybody was to sit down at the wedding feast. I believe you have one or two more diagrams, seating or standing diagrams showing where people were in the garden and just before the shot was fired. Let me put it another way, if I may. Is it your opinion that Cosmo didn’t kill his brother, or do you know it? Do you have some hard evidence to his guilt or innocence?’
    Only two days before, after Cosmo had been charged, the young man had taken out his plans once again, not the one indicating where everybody sat down, but the two before, one showing where the guests had been in the garden, and the other showing where they were just before the shot was fired. Taken together they were, he thought, the finest workof detection he had managed since he joined the force. He had looked at them again rather sadly and put them back in his drawer. He looked up at Powerscourt now with a look of appeal in his eyes.
    ‘It’s opinion, it’s a hunch,’ he said quietly. Surely he couldn’t get into trouble for saying that. Chief Inspector Weir might tell him off but he wouldn’t fire him for saying such a thing.
    ‘Very well,’ said Powerscourt, taking pity on the young man, ‘let us leave it at that for now. My investigation is still in its early stages.