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didn’t. “His hands and his voice are grand,” thought Angela, and subconsciously she felt less miserable.
    Angela told Nigel afterwards that she approved of Inspector Alleyn. He treated her with a complete absence of any show of personal interest, an attitude that might have piqued this modern young woman under less tragic circumstances. As it was, she was glad of his detachment. Little Doctor Young sat and listened, repeating every now and then his inarticulate consolatory noise. Alleyn made a few notes in his pocket-book.
    “The parlour-game, you say,” he murmured, “was limited to five and a half hours — that is to say, it began at five-thirty, and should have ended before eleven— ended with the mock trial. The body was found at six minutes to eight. Doctor Young arrived some thirty minutes later. Just let me get that clear — I’ve a filthy memory.”
    At this unorthodox and slightly unconvincing statement Doctor Young and Angela started.
    “And now, if you please,” said the Inspector, “I should like to see the other members of the household, one by one, you know. In the meantime Doctor Young can take me into the study. Perhaps you and Miss North will find out if Sir Hubert is feeling up to seeing me.”
    “Certainly,” agreed Angela. She turned to Nigel, “afterwards, will you wait for me?”
    “I’ll wait for you, Angela,” said Nigel.
    In the study Inspector Alleyn bent over the silent heaviness of Rankin’s body. He stared at it for a full two minutes, his lips closed tightly and a sort of fastidiousness winging the corners of his mouth, his nostrils, and his eyes. Then he stooped and turning the body on to its side closely examined, without touching, the dagger that had been left there, still eloquent of the gesture that had driven it through Rankin’s bone and muscle into the citadel of his heart.
    “You can be no end of a help to me here,” said Alleyn. “The blow, of course, came from above. Looks beastly, doesn’t it? The point entered the body as you see — here. Surely something of an expert’s job.”
    The little doctor, who had been greatly chastened by the official rebuke on the subject of the removal of the body, leapt at the chance of re-establishing himself.
    “Great force and, I should have thought, a considerable knowledge of anatomy are indicated. The blade entered the body to the right of the left scapula and between the third and fourth ribs, avoiding the spine and the vertebral border of the scapula. It lies at an acute angle and the point has penetrated the heart.”
    “Yes, I rather imagined it had done that,” said Alleyn sweetly, “but mightn’t this have been due to — shall we say luck, possibly?”
    “Possibly,” said the doctor stiffly. “I think not!”
    The faintest hint of a smile crept into Alleyn’s eyes.
    “Come on, Doctor Young,” he said quietly, “you’ve got your own ideas I see. What are they?”
    The little doctor looked down his little nose and a glint of mild defiance hardened his uneventful face.
    “I realize, of course, that under such very grave circumstances one should put a guard upon one’s tongue,” he said, “nevertheless, perhaps in camera, as it were…”
    “Every detective,” remarked Alleyn, “has to acquire something of the attitude of the priest. ‘In camera’ let it be, Doctor Young.”
    “I have only this to say. Before I arrived last night the body had been turned over and — and — gone over by a Russian gentleman who appears to be a medico. This in spite of the fact,” here Doctor Young’s accent became more definitely Northern, “that I was summoned immediately after the discovery. Possibly in Soviet Russia the finer shades of professional etiquette are not considered.”
    Inspector Alleyn looked at him. “A considerable knowledge of anatomy, you said,” he murmured vaguely. “Ah well, we shall see what we shall see. How extraordinary it is,” he went on, gently laying Rankin down, “his