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It was so strange that it snapped me out of my thoughts. I had to ask. ‘Sorry … did you really have an uncle named Egg?’

Flora laughed. ‘Oh, no, of course not! I just called him that. He was actually my godfather.’

This wasn’t helping. ‘Was it short for … Eggward?’

‘Oh, I see!’ she laughed. ‘No, no, that wasn’t his real name – everyone in the family called him Egg, because he was so bald! Lost all his hair at the age of twelve. That’s what Lavinia told me, anyway.’

I stopped right beside the statue. ‘Lavinia knew him, too?’

‘Of course!’ she said. ‘He was her actual uncle. That’s why we shared a dorm. Egg paid for it all!’ She shook her head. ‘Poor Egg. Tons of money, thanks to his land in the colonies, but he had a very sad life, especially towards the end. His mansion burned down, you know.’

There are moments in life when everything stops, like a big wheel at a fairground shutting off halfway through the ride. The lights go out, the music stops, the world hangs suspended. I had just realized something about our case that changed everything. And, all the while, I could hear that little silver bell in the distance, going dinga-linga-linga-ling.

‘Lavinia’s uncle,’ I said slowly, ‘was Sir William Crace.’

Flora’s face lit up. ‘Yes! Did you know him? It was so tragic, what happened to him. He was an awfully nice man, a gentleman, really. Although having said that, he utterly detested women, and the Irish, and anyone who lived south of … Oh! Stephen!’

I was racing back to Miss Decima like my life depended on it, and for the second time that day I found myself leaving a lady stony-faced.

39

Tuesday, 20 June, 6.09 p.m.

I flew into the apartment and scrambled through the study door. The carpet was littered with dented silver bells – Miss Decima had located my hidden stockpile. She was still trying to ring a very sorry-looking specimen when she saw me.

‘About fucking time!’ she fumed. ‘How long does it take you to –’

‘We need to talk,’ I said. ‘Now.’

I told her everything I’d just learnt about Sir William Crace, my words falling over each other the more I talked.

‘Flora said that just before he died he was telling everyone that he was going to reveal some big secret,’ I said breathlessly. ‘Then his mansion burns down by accident – only it’s not an accident, is it, because someone put a bomb in his furnace! A bomb that, conveniently, destroys every single piece of paper in his study. Then a few weeks later, the policeman who worked out it wasn’t an accident gets killed, too. And Lavinia Welford – Crace’s own niece! – is framed for his murder!’ I waved my arms. ‘They’re all connected, Miss Decima! Someone was trying to silence Crace, and so they had to get rid of Watts, and then Lavinia must have known something about it, so …’

I trailed off. Miss Decima was calmly shaking her head.

‘Stephen, Stephen, Stephen. Might I suggest you make yourself a cup of tea and have a little sit-down. Your imagination is running away with you. A shadowy, all-powerful organization that could dispose of Crace, kill Watts and implicate Lavinia Welford all in one fell swoop? It stretches credibility.’

I frowned. ‘Hang on a second. You said yourself that this case was something complicated, disguised as something simple. Someone taking advantage of Hammond’s Trimmer and that.’

Miss Decima bit her lip. I didn’t see what she could find so funny at a time like this.

‘Indeed,’ she said. ‘The principle of … Hammond’s Trimmer is now more important to us than ever. But we cannot allow ourselves to be swayed by the false allure of conspiracy theories: they are mere ghost stories, which people use to reassure themselves that the world has logical order, when the truth is it has none. People who believe the government are capable of such omnipotence are almost always underestimating how fucking useless they are in the first place. Instead we must focus on what we know to be true and stick to the known facts. Until Temperance returns to us with Sir William’s case file, and we see first hand the evidence that it contains, we cannot speculate on the possibility that Lavinia was targeted for a reason.’

I snorted. ‘So Lavinia Welford being Crace’s niece is just a coincidence?’

‘I am saying,’ said Miss Decima primly, ‘that we cannot discount the possibility. Until we have evidence before us, it is a far better use of our time, and efforts, to focus on our chief suspects. Mrs Ripley, Flora and Peter.’

I suddenly remembered. ‘I just ran into Mrs Ripley coming out of our road. Flora, too. They both wanted to leave letters for us in the porter’s office. Then I found Clarence Gussett lying in the gutter. He was trying to find a policeman in the sewer with a little mirror.’

She paused. ‘In the sewer, you say?’

She took out her teeth and placed them on the desk beside her. I gawped. ‘You can’t be serious, Miss Decima. Clarence has lost his mind! He thinks there are police everywhere, spying on him!’

‘Perhaps so,’ she muttered. ‘But the sewer … that certainly offers an interesting development, doesn’t it? Anything else?’

I opened my mouth to argue with her, when I suddenly remembered that there was something else. ‘Pigeons.’

She looked at me blankly.