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Bryson said, “I knew Jane a long time. The closeness – the opportunity. Well. So there is your motive, Mr Holmes. I am the lover who slew the cuckolded husband. And my opportunity for murder is without question.”

I found it painful to watch his face. There was no bitterness there, no pride: only a sour resignation.

Wells turned to Holmes. “So,” he said, “the case is resolved. Are you disappointed, Holmes?”

For answer he filled and lit his pipe. “Resolved?” he said softly. “I think not.”

Bryson looked confused. “Sir?”

“Do not be so fast to damn yourself, man. You are a suspect. But that does not make you a murderer: in my eyes, in the eyes of the law, or in the eyes of God.”

“And will the courts accept that? I am resigned, Mr Holmes: resigned to my fate. Let it be.”

To that dignified acceptance, even Holmes had nothing to say.

Holmes ordered Bryson to take us through the same grisly inspection tour as Tarquin. Soon we were walking around the wreck once more. Unlike Tarquin, Bryson had not seen this place since the day of the accident; his distress was clear as he picked his way through the remnants of the support cables. He said: “The fall took a long time, even after the main support was severed. The noise of the shearing cables went on and on, and there was not a thing I could do about it. I ran out for help, before the end. And when we heard Ralph had been killed –” Now he turned his crumpled face to Holmes’s. “No matter who you call guilty in the end, Mr Holmes, I am the killer. I know that. This is my domain; Ralph Brimicombe’s life was in my hands while he was in this room, and I failed – ”

“Stop it, man,” Holmes said sharply. “This self-destructive blame is hardly helpful. For now, we should concentrate on the facts of the case.”

Holmes took Bryson to the entrance cut in the capsule. With obvious reluctance the engineer picked his way to the crude doorway. The light inside cast his trembling cheeks in sharp relief. I saw how he looked around the walls of the cabin, at the remnants of the couch on the floor. Then he stood straight and looked at Holmes, puzzled. “Has it been cleaned?”

Holmes pointed upwards.

Bryson pushed his neck through the doorway once more and looked up at the ceiling of the capsule. When he saw the human remains scattered there he gasped and stumbled back.

Holmes said gently, “Watson, would you – ”

I took Bryson’s arm, meaning to care for him, but he protested: “I am all right. It was just the shock.”

“One question,” Holmes said. “Tell me how the cable was cut.”

“Tarquin was working the torch,” he began. “Under my direction. The job was simple; all he had to do was snip out a faulty section of an oxygen line.”

“Are you saying Ralph’s death was an accident?”

“Oh, no,” Bryson said firmly. “It was quite deliberate.” He seemed to be challenging us to disbelieve him.

“Tell me the whole truth,” said Holmes.

“I was not watching Tarquin’s every move. I had given Tarquin his instructions and had left to take breakfast before progressing to another item of work.”

“What exactly did you tell him to do?”

He considered, his eyes closing. “I pointed to the oxygen line, explained what it was, and showed him what he had to do. The air line is a purple-coded cable about a thumb’s-width thick.”

“Whereas the support cables – ”

“are all orange coded, about so thick.” He made a circle with his thumbs and middle fingers. “It is hard – impossible – to confuse the two.”

“Did you not see what he was doing?”

“I was at breakfast with Mrs Brimicombe when it happened. I expected to be back, however.”

“Why were you not?”

He shrugged. “My breakfast egg took rather longer to cook than usual. I remember the housekeeper’s apology.”

Wells tutted. “Those wretched eggs again!”

“At any event,” Bryson said, “I was only gone a few minutes. But by the time I returned Tarquin had sliced clean through the main support. Then the shearing began.”

“So you clearly identified the gas line to Tarquin.”

“I told you. I pointed to it.”

“And there is no way he could