“Honestly, my dear Jonathan—”

“She is a Miss Chloris Wynne. One of the white-haired kind.”

“A platinum blonde?”

“The colour of a light Chablis, and done up in plaster-like sausages. She resembles the chorus of my youth. I’m told that nowadays the chorus looks like the county. I find her appearance startling and her conversation difficult, but I have watched her with interest and I have formed the opinion that she is a very neat example of the woman scorned.”

“Did Nicholas scorn her?”

“Nicholas wished to marry her, but being in the habit of eating his cake in enormous mouthfuls, and keeping it, he did not allow his engagement to Miss Chloris to cramp his style as an accomplished philanderer. He continued to philander with the fifth item in our cast of characters — Madam Lisse.”

“Oh God!”

“More in anger than in sorrow, if Sandra Compline is to be believed, Miss Chloris broke off her engagement to Nicholas. After an interval so short that one suspects she acted on the ricochet, she accepted William who had previously courted her and been cut out by his brother. My private opinion is that when William returns to the front, Nicholas is quite capable of recapturing the lady, and what’s more I think she and William both know it. Nicholas and William had quarrelled in the best tradition of rival brothers and, as I say, have not met since the second engagement. I need not tell you that Mrs. Compline and William and his betrothed do not know I have invited Nicholas, nor does Nicholas know I have invited them. He knows, however, that Madam Lisse will be here. That, of course, is why he has accepted.”

“Go on,” said Mandrake, driving his fingers through his hair.

“Madame Lisse, the ambiguous and alluring woman of our cast, is an Austrian beauty specialist. I don’t suppose Lisse is her real name.