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something to help you sleep? Suffer from nerves? War-strain?’
    â€˜No,’ replied Haldean shortly and not quite truthfully in answer to all three questions.
    â€˜Hmm. I’ll leave something with Sir Philip just in case.’ He walked to the door. ‘Bad business this,’ he repeated. He looked once more at Preston. ‘And damned inconsiderate of him, too.’
    After the doctor had gone, General Flint picked up the note by Preston’s hand and read it out loud. ‘
I regret the action which I have been forced to undertake and any distress which might ensue. The motive for my action is purely financial
. That’s clear enough.’ He put the note back on the desk. ‘There’s nothing much more we can do.’ He pulled out a gold fob watch. ‘Just check the time with me, Rivers. I make it ten to eleven – yes? That means the death occurred between twenty to ten and ten o’clock. Let’s have a look at the gun.’
    Haldean winced as the General took the pistol from Preston’s hand, casually holding it in his palm.
    â€˜This is a pretty little toy of a thing, isn’t it, Rivers?’ said General Flint. He snapped out the chamber. ‘One bullet fired, I see. It doesn’t look like a real gun and yet it’s obviously deadly enough.’ He held the glittering gun under the light on the desk. ‘It’s got something engraved on the handle. The initials V. L. and what looks like a coat of arms. There’s a maker’s name too. Sparkbrook.’
    â€˜That’s Lyvenden’s firm,’ said Haldean. ‘The Sparkbrook Armouries and Munitions Company Limited, to give it its full title. He was telling us about it at lunch. I bet it’s his pistol.’
    â€˜You’re probably right,’ agreed the General. ‘I imagine he kept it in his desk drawer. I know a lot of businessmen do so. Makes them feel safer, I suppose.’ He put the gun back on the desk. ‘We’d better move the body. Perhaps you’d give us a hand, Major?’
    Overcoming his reluctance, Haldean took Preston underneath the shoulders and with Sir Philip’s help placed the body reverently on the bed. Funnily enough he was conscious of a feeling of relief after doing it. Preston felt like every other dead body he’d had to carry and looked a great deal better than most.
    Sir Philip stepped back and sighed. ‘I’ll have to ask Alice which other room we’ve got free and get it made up for Lyvenden. What happens next, Flint?’
    Flint clicked his tongue. ‘There’s nothing much we can do until tomorrow. I’ll send one of the local men round to take some statements and after that it’s simply a case of waiting for the inquest. There’ll have to be an inquest but I wouldn’t concern yourself unduly about it, Rivers. It’s only a formality. Did he have any family?’
    â€˜He had a sister and there was an uncle who acted as his trustee,’ said Haldean.
    General Flint looked at Sir Philip. ‘You’ll have to get in touch with them to see what they want to do about the body.’
    â€˜Yes, I’ll do that.’ Sir Philip looked horribly tired. ‘Jack, would you mind staying here until I can get someone to come and get Lyvenden’s things?’
    â€˜Of course.’
    â€˜I’d better go and sort something out with Alice. God, what a business!’
    Haldean waited until his uncle and General Flint left, then walked over to the desk. He’d had to bite his tongue when General Flint had picked up the gun but really, even if it had been fingerprinted properly, what could he expect it to tell him? It would certainly have Tim’s prints on it as it’d been in Tim’s hand, and Lyvenden’s too if it was his gun. He looked at the weapon with its silver barrel and mother-of-pearl handle. It was an ostentatious little gun, he thought, just the sort of gun