“Gerald, this is Superintendent Kincaid, from Scotland Yard.” Caroline moved to stand beside the large rumpled-looking man rising from the sofa. “Mr. Kincaid, my husband, Sir Gerald Asherton.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Kincaid said, feeling the response inappropriate even as he made it. But if Caroline insisted on treating his visit as a social occasion, he would play along for a bit.

“Sit down.” Sir Gerald gathered a copy of the day’s Times from the seat of an armchair and moved it to a nearby end table.

“Would you like some tea?” asked Caroline. “We’ve just finished, and it’s no trouble to heat up the kettle again.”

Kincaid sniffed the lingering odor of toast in the air and his stomach growled. From where he sat he could see the paintings he’d missed when entering the room-watercolors again, by the same artist’s hand, but this time the women reclined in elegant rooms and their dresses had the sheen of watered silk. A house to tempt the appetites, he thought, and said, “No, thank you.”

“Have a drink, then,” Sir Gerald said. “The sun’s certainly over the yardarm.”

“No, I’m fine. Really.” What an incongruous couple they made, still standing side by side, hovering over him as if he were a royal guest. Caroline, dressed in a peacock-blue silk blouse and dark tailored trousers, looked neat and almost childlike beside her husband’s bulk.

Sir Gerald smiled at Kincaid, a great, infectious grin that showed pink gums. “Geoffrey recommended you very highly, Mr. Kincaid.”

By Geoffrey he must mean Geoffrey Menzies-St. John, Kincaid’s assistant commissioner, and Asherton’s old schoolmate. Though the two men must be of an age, there any outward resemblance ended. But the AC, while dapper and precise enough to appear priggish, possessed a keen intelligence, and Kincaid thought that unless Sir Gerald shared that quality, the two men would not have kept up with one another over the years.