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wriggled uncomfortably in her grasp. “Judy, make room for Doon. Now, you sit down here, my dear, and have your lunch.…”
    “Oh, for God’s sake shut up, Gregory,” cried Judy, in a fury. “Doon’s got a mind of her own; she knows whether she wants her lunch or not. Silly bitch,” she added long before Gregory was out of earshot; “I’d like to wring her ruddy neck.”
    “Stinking cat,” agreed Toria automatically, her mouth full of curry.
    All this, with the exception of the actual conversations and of a certain amount of detail which Charlesworth unearthed later in the morning, Bevan was able to relate. “I think that’ll help to clear matters up a lot,” said Charlesworth, privately thinking nothing of the sort. “Oh, here’s Bedd. Is Mr. Cecil ready, Sergeant? Good. Now, perhaps you’ll just let us have your full name and private address, Mr. Bevan; and then would you ask Mr. Cecil to come up right away?”
    “Yes, certainly; and—er—before I go, Inspector, I’d like to thank you very much for the—er—the very decent way in which you’ve conducted this interview. It could have been pretty disagreeable and, of course, I’m worried and upset about the whole affair. You must forgive me if I was a bit irritable.”
    “Good lord, yes,” cried Charlesworth, pleased. “I quite appreciate your feelings…. rather a pleasant chap,” he added to the sergeant as the door closed.
    “Very pleasant, sir. Funny thing, though—he was n’t particularly irritable; not to make a song about, was he? nor was you particularly inoffensive, not while I was in here.”
    “Bedd, you’re a psychologist! The gentleman’s worried, eh? And now I come to think of it—did you see what I saw when I trotted out the idea of murder?”
    “A shade of relief, Mr. Charlesworth?”
    “Funny thing, wasn’t it, Bedd?”
    They were nodding their heads sagaciously at one another when Bevan returned; but they broke off and Charlesworth sat staring, with his mouth wide open, at the vision of his remarkable companion. Bevan broke the spell with a brief introduction and then left them and Cecil sat himself down at the extreme edge of a chair and twisted his delicate hands. He was a slim, fair man, with huge, brown, long-lashed eyes, a well-modelled nose and over-feminine mouth; at first sight one took him for a youth, but soft living had given him, too early, pouches beneath the eyes and a suspicion of a paunch. His trousers were draped over girlish hips and his suit and shirt were a miracle of lavender grey; over his forehead a lock of yellow hair was trained to fall, and be pushed back with a graceful hand. Charlesworth took one more look at the brassy gold of this lock of hair, and retired to a corner to conceal his mirth, while Bedd stolidly noted Mr. Cecil’s name and address. “All very well for old Charles, giggling to hisself in the background and leaving me to get on with the job,” thought Sergeant Bedd grimly; he wiped a grin from his face with a huge brown hand and announced that Mr. Cecil was now ready to be questioned.
    There was a frightful silence. Charlesworth struggled to control himself and came forward to put a polite and restrained question; but his voice betrayed him and they all three jumped as he asked suddenly with a tremendous roar: “What did you do with the poison?”
    The colour left Cecil’s face, leaving two little patches of rouge high up on his cheekbones; his brown eyes stared at Charlesworth in stark terror and he said not a word. There was no temptation to giggle now. Charlesworth pulled his chair in front of the other and sat down facing him. “Now then, quickly—what did you do with the poison?”
    “I haven’t got any poison! I never touched any poison!”
    “Oh, look here, now.… Mr. Bevan’s just told us that he asked you to get rid of a whole lot of oxalic acid crystals that had been spilt in the showroom. I want to know what you did with them.”
    “Oh, yes;