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believed a small, cunning and perfectly coherent mind lay beneath “interference” designed to bully and exhaust opposition. Steadfastly he refused her threats, whines, pathetic lies and claims and continued to demand an account of her whereabouts on the night of the murders. “Nonsense,” she insisted, “I was never there. I was not very well that evening. A touch of Alzheimer’s. My doctor will swear to it. I was at the pictures. Whoever you saw, it wasn’t me. An imposter. You’d better question your chum Elizabeth. She never liked me. They were after the cup, too, you know. They said it was theirs by right. Poppycock! They knew how much it was worth. We planned to set up an office in York. But it’s not safe there any more.”

Begg insisted he meet her and talk “chiefly for your own protection.” Eventually he persuaded her, by wonderfully veiled threats, to meet him or be arrested for murder.

“Very well, Sir Seaton.” She was suddenly brisk. “I respect your family name. Be ready to receive me this evening at six o’clock in Sporting Club Square. But please be prepared also to take responsibility for your actions…”

“I am very grateful, Lady Ratchet. By the by, would you try to recall on your way if you ever knew a fellow by the nickname of ‘Crimson Eyes’?”

A cold pause. At length Lady Ratchet replaced the receiver.

CHAPTER THREE

The Last Victim

Heavy snow was falling as the Boxing Day sun set over Sporting Club Square. Lady Ratchet, mad as she was, had never been late. Begg went to his sitting room windows and pulled back the rich, tawny Morris curtains on which the firelight made a new, dancing geometry. He peered through the blackness, through the big white flakes, through the sharply defined branches of plane trees, down into the square, towards the elaborate iron gates where “Mad Maggie” would enter.

At three minutes to six he was sure he heard a taxi setting down. Since then, save for the occasional muffled stamping of snow-laden feet, the Square had grown silent. Glancing again at his gleaming Tompion, Begg saw that it was four minutes past the hour. At that moment the soft winter air was pierced by the high-pitched shriek of a police whistle. Begg started, as if struck by a new idea, and hurried to don his overcoat. He reached the policeman outside the gates in less than a minute. “What’s up, officer?”

The answer lay before them, already touched by a thickening layer of snow. Begg instantly recognized the frail, twisted little body from the shoes subtly clashing with the skirt. It was poor old “Mad Maggie.” Noting the black leather trophy case in her left hand, Begg knelt beside the body, feeling uselessly for a pulse. The corpse seemed to shrivel as he watched, as if it had been animated solely by its owner’s lunacy. Her face stared up at him through snow still melting on her fading paint. It was an expression of unmitigated terror. There was no sign of a wound. Maggie had died clutching at her own throat. Who had known she was on her way to see him?

Begg looked around for footprints. The snow had already obscured the trail. By the way she lay half in the gutter and half on the pavement, Lady Ratchet had met her death as she entered the square.

“By God, sir,” exclaimed the policeman, “it’s like she ran into Jack the Ripper and Mr. Hyde at the same time. What do you think she saw, sir?”

“Oh, I’d guess something much worse than either,” said Seaton Begg.

CHAPTER FOUR

Old Blood

At one in the morning, Boxing Day over and snow continuing to fall, Begg, wrapped in a heavy Ulster and fur cap, stood in the darkness of an archway on the third floor of a Sporting Club Square mansion only five blocks from his own. Begg’s stoicism was famous, but tonight he felt his age. At last he heard a soft footfall in the snow outside. A door opened almost silently. Light steps sounded on the carpeted stairway, and at last a tall figure in full evening dress appeared on the landing, stepping forward with a latchkey held out in its bone-white hand.

Then Begg revealed himself.

“And did you enjoy the Messiaen, Monsieur?