“I can’t help it if…” Nigel broke off and looked at Gibson. “It’s — I’d like to see you alone.”
Alleyn nodded good-humouredly at Gibson, who went out.
“Now what is it?” Alleyn asked. “Have you come to tell me I mustn’t speak to your friends as if there’s been a murder in their flat?”
“I’ve come to tell you it’s utterly out of the question that any of them should be implicated. I’ve come to save them, if possible, from opening their mouths and putting their feet in them. See here, Alleyn, I’ve known the Lampreys all my life. Known them well. They’re as mad as May flies but there’s not a vicious impulse in the make-up of a single one of them. Oh hell, I’m not going about this in the right way! I got such a damned jolt when they told me what was up that I’m all anyhow. Let me explain the Lampreys.”
“Two of their friends have already explained them, this evening,” said Alleyn. “Their descriptions tallied fairly well. Boiled down to a few unsympathetic adjectives they came to this: ‘Charming. Irresponsible. Unscrupulous about money. Good-natured. Lazy. Amusing. Enormously popular.’ Do you agree?”
“Nobody knows better than you,” said Nigel, “that people can not be boiled down into a few adjectives.”
“I entirely agree. So what do you suggest we do about it?”
“If I could make you understand the Lampreys! God knows what they’ve been saying to you! I can see that in spite of the shock it’s given them they’re beginning to look at this business as a sort of macabre parlour game with themselves on one side and you on the other. They’re hopeless. They’ll try to diddle you merely to see if they can get away with it. Can you understand that?”
“No,” Alleyn said. “If they’re making false statements for the sheer fun of the thing, I’ve completely misjudged them.”
“But, Alleyn—”