“Let’s be sensible,” he urged. “Now tell me, have you ever heard of a man called Larry Hughes?”

That was a shot in the dark. He had little doubt what the answer would be.

Penelope Noelson’s lips came together in a thin, obstinate line. “No,” she snapped.

The detective gave no sign that he had heard her. He moved aimlessly to the small table he had been using and bent over a paper. She stood up with a little petulant shrug of her shoulders, and was halfway to the door before he spoke again.

“Oh, by the way, there is another small matter. Why did you give me a hundred pound note this morning?”

Her eyes widened, and as she wheeled to face him her hands groped for the support of a chair.

“I gave you a hundred pound note? Why, I never saw you before in my life.”