“Never, sir, to my knowledge.”

“Whom have you told?”

“No one, sir.”

“Are you quite certain?” asked Rollison. “You might have just mentioned it to someone in passing—”

“Impossible, sir,” said Jolly. “How can it be impossible?”

“Until last night I thought there were forty-six trophies. I had made an error in my card index record several years ago.”

Rollison caught his breath before saying, almost unbelievingly:

“So nobody could have known that the score was forty-nine.”

“No, sir,” Jolly concurred with simple positiveness.

The two men stared at each other without moving, Jolly looking like one who, having roundly declared that he did not believe in ghosts, now found himself face to face with one. They were so still, so silent, that the ticking of the French ormolu clock on the mantelpiece began to sound in Rollison’s ears.

He moved at last, lifting the telephone again very slowly.

“Go and do whatever you have to do in the kitchen, and put your thinking cap on,” he ordered. He dialled 230 1212 as Jolly disappeared; a slow-moving, puzzled Jolly. Almost as soon as he stopped dialling, a girl said quite crossly:

“Scotland Yard.”

“Superintendent Grice, please.”

“Who?”

“Mr Grice. Tell me,” said Rollison, “is everything all right at the Yard this morning?”

“All right! the girl exclaimed. “It’s been bedlam. It’s been—you’re through.”

A man with a reassuringly crisp voice said: “Grice.”

“Good morning, Superintendent,” said Rollison, brightly. “This is—”

“Good morning, Rolly,” said Superintendent William Grice. “I hope you haven’t called about Madam Melinska, too.”

Rollison was momentarily stumped for words. During the pause which followed he heard Grice giving instructions; then, suddenly, Grice was back, still brisk, still clear.

“Sorry,” he said. “I was on the other line when you rang.”