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“online”? All at the click of a button!’
    ‘The internet has a lot to answer for,’ Payne said sternly.
    ‘There was something profoundly dubious about the early Remnants,’ Lady Grylls went on. ‘They thrived on patronage and blackmail and depended on largesse rather than industry for their richer hours. They worked exclusively at their pleasure and liked nothing better than striking attitudes. Remnants were single-minded and incredibly devious. They were liars and looters. They lacked self-awareness.’
    ‘Mad?’
    ‘Oh, indubitably. But they were always methodical and always enterprising. Shakespeare’s said to have come up with one of his most famous phrases as a result of his association with a Remnant. Can’t remember which one it was now. Madness comes into it.’
    ‘Method in his madness?’ Payne suggested.
    ‘That’s it. Yes. Remnants were notorious for coming up with loony schemes, which they somehow managed to make work. They were flamboyant and reckless. They were awfully keen on theatricals. During the reign of Elizabeth I, a Remnant maintained a private band of actors at Newstead, which was the scene not only of dramatics but of debauches as well.’
    ‘Tenantless graves. That’s Hamlet , I think,’ said Payne.
    ‘Is it? I’d be grateful if you concentrated on the road, Hughie. You are a bloody marvellous driver and I love it when you drive like a fiend, but I am sure we’ll have a fatal accident if you insist on taking your eyes off the road. How dreadful, if we got trapped inside the car and they had to cut us out of the wreckage. Like the sardines in the French song.’
    ‘What French song?’
    ‘ Marinés, argentés, leurs petits corps décapités .’
    ‘I don’t believe there is such a song. Too macabre.’
    ‘It goes back to the early days of the French Revolution, I think. Mayfair wouldn’t be such a bad place to die,’ Lady Grylls went on in a reflective voice, ‘if one absolutely had to. It would be better than most places, in fact. All these lovely houses and wonderfully tended gardens, with the Ritz just round the corner.’
    ‘I believe I’ve got the Hamlet quotation,’ said Payne. ‘ The graves stood tenantless and the sheeted dead Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets .’
    ‘Romans saw no virtue in moderation and very little in virtue. Nor for that matter did Remnants. Roderick’sgreat-grandfather, the ninth earl, was sent to a French military academy, but apparently he preferred to mount his campaigns in wanton female company. He frequented les maisons de tolérance .’
    ‘Not brothels?’
    ‘I am afraid so. The ninth earl was not famous for his self-control. His own sisters as well as his young and pretty aunt were said not to have been exempt from his gallantry, though perhaps “gallantry” is not the right word— Why are we stopping?
    ‘Journey’s end, darling.’ Payne was taking off his driving gloves.
    ‘So glad we’ve arrived in one piece,’ said Lady Grylls. ‘Belgrave Square looks perfectly splendid after the rain.’

    * See The Death of Corinne.

6
Riddles in Mayfair
    A maid opened the door and let Lady Grylls and Major Payne in. As they walked across the hall, Payne paused to glance at the photographs in silver frames.
    The drawing room, with its high ceiling and Adam chimneypiece, was furnished with restrained good taste. Half a dozen early-nineteenth-century paintings of dogs hung on sashes against walnut panelling that had been glazed in three shades of pistachio green. The moment they entered, the carriage clock on the mantelshelf chimed eleven.
    Felicity Remnant, a placid-looking woman in hound’s-tooth tweeds and two strings of pearls, rose from the sofa. She had a preoccupied air about her. She seemed unable to tear her eyes from the frozen black-and-white image on the TV screen.
    Putting the remote control on the low coffee table, she turned to her visitors.
    ‘So good of you to come.’ She and Lady Grylls exchanged