Alleyn said: “Am I to take it, sir, that this is an order?”

“I must say,” dodged the A.C, “I thought you would be delighted.”

“I expect I ought to be.”

“Very well, then,” said the A.C. testily, “why the hell aren’t you?”

“Well, sir, you talked about coincidences. It so happens that by a preposterous series of them Troy has been mixed up to a greater and lesser degree in four of my cases. And—”

“And by all accounts behaved quite splendidly. Hul-lo!” said the A.C. “That’s it, is it? You don’t like her getting involved?”

“On general principles, no, I don’t.”

“But my dear man, you’re not going out to the antipodes to involve yourself in an investigation. You’re on observation. There won’t,” said the A.C, “as likely as not, be anything to observe. Except, of course, your most attractive wife. You’re not going to catch a murderer. You’re not going to catch anyone. What?”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“All right. It’s an order. You’d better ring your wife and tell her. ’Morning to you.”

iii

In Melbourne all was well. The Sydney season had been a fantastic success artistically, financially, and, as far as Isabella Sommita was concerned, personally. “Nothing to equal it had been experienced,” as the press raved, “within living memory.” One reporter laboriously joked that if cars were motivated by real instead of statistical horsepower the quadrupeds would undoubtedly have been unhitched and the diva drawn in triumph and by human propulsion through the seething multitudes.

There had been no further offensive photography.