The Skull Beneath The Skin

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Sergeant Robert Buckley was young, good-looking and intelligent and well aware of these advantages. Less commonly, he was also aware of their limitations. He had gained three A-level subjects with respectable grades at the end of his two years in the sixth, an achievement which would have justified going on to university in company with friends similarly qualified. But it wouldn't have been the university of his choice. He suspected that his intelligence, although keen, was superficial, that he couldn't compete with real scholars, and he had no intention of joining the over-educated unemployed at the end of another three years of mildly boring academic grind. He judged that success would come quickest in a job for which he was over- rather than under-qualified and where he would be competing with men who were less rather than better educated than himself. He recognized in himself a streak of sadism which found a certain mild satisfaction in the pain of others without necessarily needing actively to inflict it. He was an only child of elderly parents who had begun by doting on him, moved on to admiring him and had ended by being a little afraid of him. That, too, he found agreeable. His choice of career had been natural and easy, the final decision made while he was loping with long, easy strides over the Purbeck hills, watching the earth move in streaks of fawn and green. There had only been two possibilities, the Army or the Police, and he had quickly rejected the first. He was aware of some social insecurity; there were traditions, mores, a public school ethos about the Army for which he felt a wary distrust. This was an alien world which might expose him, even reject him, before he had had a chance to master it. The Police, on the other hand, given what he had to offer, ought to be pleased to have him. And to do them justice, they had been pleased.

Sitting now in the bow of the launch, he felt satisfied with the world and with himself. He made a practice of concealing his enthusiasm as he did his imagination. Both were like fascinating but wayward friends, to be enjoyed rarely and with caution since they had about them the taint of treachery. But as he watched Courcy Island steadily taking form and colour across a dazzle of sea, he was aware of a heady mixture of exultation and fear. He exulted at the promise that here, at last, was the murder case of which he had dreamed since he had gained his sergeant's stripes. He feared that it might yet collapse; that they would be met at the jetty with those depressingly familiar words:

'He's waiting for you upstairs. We've got someone watching him. He's in a terrible state. He says he doesn't know what came over him.'

They never did know what came over them, those self-confessed murderers, as pathetic in defeat as they were incompetent in their killing. Murder, the unique and ultimate crime, was seldom the most interesting forensically or the most difficult to solve. But when you did get a good one there was no excitement like it; the heady combination of a man-hunt with a puzzle, the smell of fear in the air, strong as the metallic smell of blood, the sense of randy well-being, the fascinating way in which confidence, personality, morale subtly changed and deteriorated under its contaminating impact. A good murder was what police work was about. And this promised to be a good one.

He glanced across to where his chief sat, his red hair glinting in the sun. Grogan looked as he always did before a case, silent and withdrawn, the eyes hooded but wary, the muscles tensed under the well-cut tweed, the whole of that powerful body gathering its energies for action like the predator he was. When Buckley had been introduced to him three years earlier he had been at once reminded of pictures in his boyhood comics of an Indian brave and had mentally crowned that carved and ruddy head with ceremonial feathers. But the comparison had in some subtle way been inaccurate. Grogan was too large a man, too English and too complicated for so uncompromisingly simple an image. Buckley had only once been invited briefly into the stone cottage outside Speymouth where, separated from his wife, Grogan lived alone. It was rumoured that he had a son and that there was some trouble with the boy; what exactly no one seemed to know. The cottage had revealed nothing. There were no pictures, no mementoes of old cases, no photographs of family or colleagues, few books apart from what looked like a complete set of the Famous Trials series, little but bare stone walls and a bank of expensive stereo equipment. Grogan could have packed his bags and been out of it in half an hour leaving nothing of himself behind. Buckley still didn't understand him although after two years of working under him he knew what to expect; the alternate taciturnity and volubility during which he would use his sergeant as a sounding-board; the occasional sarcasm, the ruthlessness and the impatience. He only partly resented being used as a combination of clerk, shorthand writer, pupil and audience. Grogan did too much of the work himself. But you could learn from him; he got results; he wasn't tainted with failure and he was fair. And he was nearing retirement; only two years to go. Buckley took what he wanted from him and bided his time.

There were three figures waiting for them on the jetty, motionless as statues. Buckley guessed who two of them must be before the launches had chugged to a stop: Sir George Ralston standing almost at attention in his old-fashioned shooting-jacket. Ambrose Gorringe more relaxed but incongruously formal in his dinner-jacket. Both of them watched the arrivals disembark with wary formality like the commanders of a besieged castle awaiting the armistice negotiators and watching with undeluded eyes for the first hint of treachery. The third man, dark-clad and taller than the other two was obviously some kind of servant. He stood a little behind them and gazed stolidly past them out to sea. His stance conveyed that certain guests were welcome on Courcy but that the police were not among them.

Grogan and Gorringe made the introductions. Buckley noticed that his chief expressed no sympathy, spoke no words of formal regret to the widower. But then, he never did. He had once explained why: 'It's offensively insincere, and they know it. There's enough duplicity in police work without adding to it. Some lies are insulting.' And if Ralston or Gorringe noticed the omission, neither made a sign.

Ambrose Gorringe did all the talking. As they moved between wide lawns towards the castle entrance, he said:

'Sir George has organized a search of the castle and the island. The castle has been searched but the three groups covering the island aren't back yet.'

'My men will take that over now, sir.'

'So I supposed. The rest of the cast are in the theatre. Sir Charles Cottringham would be glad of a word with you.' 'Did he say what about?'

'No. Merely a matter, I imagine, of letting you know that he's here.'

'I know that already. I'll see the body now and then I'd be grateful for the use of a small and quiet room for the rest of the day and, possibly, until Monday.'

'I thought that my business room would be the most suitable. If you will ring from Miss Lisle's room when you're ready, I'll show you where it is. And Munter will get you anything you need. My guests and I will be in the library when you want us.'

They moved through a large hall and up the staircase. Buckley noticed nothing of his surroundings. He walked with Sir George immediately behind Grogan and Ambrose Gorringe and listened while Gorringe gave his chief a succinct but remarkably comprehensive account of the events leading up to Miss Lisle's death: how she came to be on the island; brief particulars of the rest of the house party; the threatening letters; the fact that she had thought it necessary to bring her own private detective with her, Miss Cordelia Gray; the loss of the marble limb; the discovery of the body. It was an impressive performance, as carefully impersonal and factual as if it had been rehearsed. But then, thought Buckley, it probably had.

Outside the door, the party paused. Gorringe handed over three keys. He said:

'I locked all three doors after the discovery of the body. These are the only keys. I take it you don't want us to come in?'

Sir George spoke for the first time:

'When you need me, Chief Inspector, I'll be with my wife's stepson in his room. Boy's upset. Natural in the circumstances. Munter knows where to find me.' He turned abruptly and left them.

Grogan answered Gorringe's question.

'You've been very helpful, sir. But I think we can manage here on our own.'

She was an actress even in death. The scene in the bedroom was extraordinarily dramatic. Even the set had been cleverly designed for melodrama in the grand manner, the props glittering and ostentatious, the dominant colour red. And there she lay sprawled under the crimson canopy, one white leg carefully raised to show an expanse of thigh, her face plastered with artificial blood, while director and cameraman stepped round her, contemplating the best angles, careful not to touch or disturb that artfully provocative pose. Grogan stood at the right of the bed and looked down at her frowning, as if wondering whether the casting director had been right in choosing her for the role. Then he leaned down and sniffed at the skin of her arm. The moment was bizarre. Buckley thought: 'Is thy servant a dog that he should do this thing?' Almost he expected her to shudder with outrage, sit up and stretch out groping hands, demand a towel to wipe the mess from her face.

The room was overcrowded but the experts in death, investigating officers, fingerprint officers, photographer and scene-of-crime searchers, were adept at keeping out of each other's way. Grogan, as Buckley knew, had never reconciled himself to the use of civilian scene-of-crime officers, which was odd when you considered that he had come from the Met where the employment and training of civilians had gone about as far as it could go. But these two knew what they were about. They moved as delicately and confidendly as a couple of cats prowling their familiar habitat. He had worked with both of them before but he doubted whether he would recognize them in the street or the pub. He stood back out of the way and watched the senior of them. It was always their hands that he watched, hands sheathed in gloves so fine that they looked like a second glistening skin. Now those hands poured the remnants of the tea into a collecting flask, stoppered, sealed and labelled it; gently eased the cup and saucer into a plastic bag; scraped a sample of blood from the marble limb and placed it in the specially prepared tube; took up the limb itself, touching it only with the tips of the fingers and lowered it into a sterile box; delicately picked up the note with tweezers and insinuated that gently into its envelope. At the bed his colleague was busy with magnifying glass and tweezers, collecting hairs from the pillow, seemingly oblivious of that shattered face. When the Home Office pathologist had completed his examination, the bedclothes would be bundled into a plastic bag, sealed and added to the other exhibits. Grogan said:

'Doc Ellis-Jones is visiting his mother-in-law at Wareham, conveniently for us. They've sent an escort. He should be here within the next half-hour. Not that there's much he can tell us that we can't see for ourselves. And the time of death is fixed within pretty tight limits anyway. If you reckon the loss of body heat on this kind of day at about one and a half degrees an hour for the first six hours, he's unlikely to be able to put it any closer than we already know, some time between twenty past one when the girl left her alive, so Ambrose Gorringe tells us, and two forty-three when the same girl found her dead. To be the last one to see the victim and the one to find the body suggests that Miss Cordelia Gray is either careless or unfortunate. We may be able to judge which when we see her.'

Buckley said:

'From the appearance of the blood, sir, I'd say that she died sooner rather than later.'

'Yes. My guess would be within about thirty minutes of being left. That quotation under the marble limb. You recognized it, Sergeant?'

'No, sir.'

'I'm relieved to hear it, From The Duchess of Malfi, so Ambrose Gorringe informs us, the play in which Miss Lisle was cast in the title role. "Blood flies upwards and bedews the heavens." I applaud the sentiment even if I couldn't identify the source. But it isn't particularly apposite. The blood didn't fly upwards, or not to any great extent. This systematic destruction of the face was done after death. And we know the possible reasons for that.'

It was rather like a viva-voce examination, thought Buckley. But this question was an easy one.

'To conceal identity. To obscure the real cause of death. To make absolutely sure. An explosion of anger, hatred or fear.'

'And then, after that brainstorm of violence, our literary-minded murderer calmly replaces the eye pads. He has a sense of humour, Sergeant.'

They moved together into the bathroom. Here was a compromise between period opulence and modern functionalism. The great bath was marble and encased in a mahogany surround. The seat of the lavatory was mahogany, too, with a high flush. The walls were tiled, each tile painted in blue with a different posy of wild flowers, and there was a cheval-glass, its frame decorated with cherubs. But the towel-rail was heated, there was a bidet, a shower had been installed above the bath and a shelf over the hand-basin held a formidable assortment of bath essences, powder and expensive wrapped soaps.

Four white towels were untidily hung over the rail. Grogan sniffed each of them and rumpled them in his huge hands. He said:

'It's a pity about that heated rail. They're completely dry. And so are the bath and hand-basin. There's no way of telling whether she had time to bath before she was killed, not unless Doc Ellis-Jones can isolate traces of powder or bath essence from her skin, and even that wouldn't be conclusive. But the towels look as if they've been recently used and they're slightly scented. So is the body and it's the same smell. My guess is that she did have time. She drank her tea, took off her make-up and bathed. If Miss Gray left her at twenty past one, that would bring us to about twenty minutes to two.'

The senior scene-of-crime officer was waiting at the door. Grogan stood aside for him then went back into the bedroom and stood at the window looking out to where a hairline of purple separated the darkening sea from the sky. He said:

'Have you heard of the Birdhurst Rise Poisonings?'

'In Croydon, wasn't it, sir? Arsenic'

'Three members of the same middle-class family murdered with arsenic between April 1928 and March 1929; Edmund Duff, a retired Colonial Civil Servant, his sister-in-law and her widowed mother. In each case the poison must have been administered in food or medicine. It could only have been a member of the household, but the police never made an arrest. It's a fallacy to suppose that a small circle of suspects, all known to each other, makes a case easier to solve. It doesn't; it only makes failure indefensible.'

Failure wasn't a word which Buckley could remember having heard before on Grogan's lips. His euphoria gave way to a small weight of anxiety. He thought of Sir Charles Cottringham even now cooling his heels in the theatre, of the Chief Constable, of Monday's publicity. 'Baronet's wife battered to death in island castle. Well-known actress slain.' This wasn't a case which any-officer ambitious for his future could afford to lose. He wondered what it had been about this room, this victim, this weapon, perhaps the air of Courcy Island itself, which had evoked that depressing note of caution.

For a moment neither of them spoke. Then there was a sudden roar and a speedboat rounded the eastern tip of the island and swept a wide curving wake towards the quay. Grogan said:

'Doc Ellis-Jones is making his usual dramatic appearance. Once he's told us what we already know, that she's a female and she's dead, and has explained what we can work out for ourselves, that it wasn't accident or suicide and it happened between one twenty and two forty-three, we can get down to the business of finding out what our suspects have to say for themselves, beginning with the baronet.'

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

It was nearly half-past four and Ambrose, Ivo, Roma and Cordelia were standing together on the jetty looking out to sea as Shearwater, taking the cast back to Speymouth, moved beyond the eastern tip of the island and out of sight. Ambrose said:

'Well, they may have been done out of their moment in the spotlight but they can't complain that the day has been dull. Clarissa's murder will be all over the county by dinner-time. That means we can expect a press invasion by dawn.'

Ivo said:

'What will you do?'

'Prevent anyone from landing, although not with the brutal effectiveness of de Courcy at the time of the Plague. But the island is private property. And I'll instruct Munter to refer all telephone inquiries to the police at Speymouth. They've presumably got a public relations department. Let them cope.'

Cordelia, still in her cotton dress, shivered. The bright day was beginning to fade. Soon would come that transitory and lovely moment when the setting sun shines with its last and brightest rays, intensifying the colour of grass and trees so that the air itself is stained with greenness. Now the shadows lay long and heavy over the terrace. The Saturday sailors had turned for home and the sea stretched in an empty calm. Only the two police launches rocked gently against the quay, and the smooth bricks of the castle walls and turrets, which for a moment had glowed with a richer red, darkened and reared above them, ponderous and forbidding.

As they passed through the great hall, the castle received them into an unnatural silence. Somewhere upstairs the police were busy with their secret expertise of death. Sir George was either being questioned or was with Simon in his room. No one seemed to know and no one liked to ask. The four of them, still awaiting their formal questioning, turned by common consent into the library. It might be less comfortable than the drawing-room, but at least it offered plenty of material for those who chose to pretend that they wanted to read. Ivo took the only easy chair and lay back with his eyes turned to the ceiling, his long legs stretched. Cordelia sat at the chart table and slowly turned the pages of the 1876 bound copy of the Illustrated London Mews. Ambrose stood with his back to them, looking out over the lawn. Roma was the most restless, regularly pacing between the bookshelves like a prisoner under compulsory exercise. It was a relief when Munter and his wife brought in the tea, the heavy silver teapot, the brass kettle with the wick burning under it, the Minton tea-service. Munter drew the curtains across the tall windows and put a match to the fire. It crackled into life. Paradoxically the library became at once cosier but more oppressive, enclosed in its shadowed hermetic calm. They were all thirsty. No one had much appetite but ever since the finding of the body they had craved the comfort and stimulus of strong tea or coffee, and busying themselves with cups and saucers at least gave them something to do. Ambrose settled himself beside Cordelia. Stirring his tea he said:

'Ivo, you have all the London gossip. Tell us about this man, Grogan. I confess that, on first acquaintance, I don't take to him.'

'No one has all the London gossip. London, as you very well know, is a collection of villages, socially and occupationally as well as geographically. But theatrical gossip and police gossip do occasionally overlap. There's an affinity between detectives and actors as there is between surgeons and actors.'

'Spare us the dissertation. What do you know about him? You've spoken to someone, I suppose?'

'I admit I did telephone a contact; from this room actually, while you were busy receiving Grogan and his minions. The story is that he resigned from the Met because he was disgusted with the corruption in the CID. That, of course, was before the latest purge. He is, apparently, a proper William Morris man: "No more now my knight, or God's knight any longer, you being than they so much more white, so much more pure and good and true." That should reassure you, Roma.'

'Nothing about the police reassures me.'

Ambrose said:

'I suppose I'd better be careful about offering him drink. It could be construed as an attempt to bribe or corrupt. I wonder if the Chief Constable, or whoever it is decides these things, sent him here to fail.'

Roma said sharply:

'Why should anyone do that?'

'Better the incomer than one of your own men. And he could very easily fail. This is a story-book killing: a close circle of suspects, isolated scene-of-crime conveniently cut off from the mainland, known terminus a quo and terminus ad quem. It should be perfectly possible to tie it up – that's the jargon, isn't it? – within a week. Everyone will expect it to be solved quickly. But if the killer keeps his head clear and his mouth shut I very much doubt whether he or she is in real danger. All he needs to do – let's be chivalrous and assume it's a man – is to stick to his story; never excuse, never embellish, never explain. It isn't what the police know or suspect; it's what they can prove.'

Roma said:

'You sound as though you don't want it solved.'

'Without having strong feelings on the matter, I should prefer to have it solved. It would be tedious to spend the rest of one's life as a suspected murderer.'

'It'll bring in the summer tourists though, won't it? People love blood and horror. You'll be able to show the scene of the crime -for an extra twenty pence, of course.'

Ambrose said easily:

'I don't pander to sensationalism. That's why summer visitors don't get shown the crypt. And this is a murder in poor taste.' 'But aren't all murders in poor taste?'

'Not necessarily. It would make a good parlour game, classifying the classical murder cases according to their degree of tastelessness. But this one strikes me as particularly bizarre, extravagant, theatrical.'

Roma had drained her first cup of tea and was pouring a second. 'Well that's appropriate enough.' She added:

'It's odd that we've been left here alone, isn't it? I thought that there'd be a plain-clothes underling sitting in and taking a note of all our indiscretions.'

'The police know the limit of their territory and of their powers. I've given them the use of the business room and, naturally, they've locked the two guest-rooms. But this is still my house and my library and they come in here by invitation. Until they decide to charge someone, we're all entitled to be treated as innocent. Even Ralston, presumably, although as husband he has to be elevated to chief suspect. Poor George! If he really loved her this must be hell for him.'

Roma said:

'My guess is he'd stopped loving her six months after the wedding. He must have known by then that she wasn't capable of fidelity.'

Ambrose asked:

'He never showed the least sign, did he?'

'Not to me, but then I hardly ever saw them. And what could he do, faced with that particular insubordination? You can hardly deal with an unfaithful wife as if she were a recalcitrant subaltern. But I don't suppose he liked it. But if he didn't kill her and I don't for one moment believe that he did, he's probably not entirely ungrateful to whoever did. The money will come in useful to subsidize that Fascist organization he runs. The Union of British Patriots, UBP. Wouldn't you know from the name that it's a Fascist front?'

Ambrose smiled:

'Well, I wouldn't expect it to be full of Trots and International Socialists certainly. It's harmless enough. A Boys' Own Paper mentality and a geriatric army.'

Roma slammed down her cup and began again her resdess pacing. 'My God, you're good at deceiving yourselves, aren't you? It's nasty, it's embarrassing and most unforgivable of all, the people concerned actually take themselves seriously. They really believe in their dangerous nonsense. So let's all laugh at it, and perhaps it will go away. When the chips are down, who do you think this geriatric army are going to be defending? The poor bloody proles? Not likely!'

'I rather hope they'll be defending me.'

'Oh, they will, Ambrose, they will! You and the multi-national corporations, the establishment, the Press barons. Clarissa's money will do its bit towards keeping the rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate.'

Ambrose said mischievously:

'But don't you get some of the money? And won't it come in useful to you?'

'Of course, money always does. But it isn't important. I'll be glad enough of it, I suppose, when it actually comes, but I don't need it. It certainly isn't important enough to kill for. Come to that, I don't know what is.'

'Oh, come on, Roma, don't be naive! A cursory read of the daily papers will tell you what people find important enough to kill for. Dangerous and destructive emotions, to begin with. Love, for example.'

Munter was at the door. He coughed, rather, thought Cordelia, like a stock butler in a play, and said:

'The pathologist, Dr Ellis-Jones, has arrived, sir.'

Ambrose looked for a moment distracted as if wondering whether he was expected formally to greet the newcomer. He said:

'I'd better come, I suppose. Do the police know he's here?' 'Not yet, sir. I thought it right to inform you first.' 'Where is he, the pathologist?' 'In the great hall, sir.'

'Well, we can't keep him waiting. You'd better take him to Chief Inspector Grogan. I suppose there are things he may need. Hot water, for example.'

He looked vaguely around as if expecting a jug and basin to materialize from the air. Munter disappeared.

Ivo murmured:

'You make it sound like childbirth.'

Roma swung round, her tone was a mixture of the peevish and appalled. 'But surely he's not going to do the post-mortem here!' They all looked at Cordelia. She thought that Ambrose must surely know the procedure, but he too gazed at her with a look of bland, almost amused inquiry. She said:

'No. He'll just do a preliminary examination at what they call the scene-of-crime. He'll take the temperature of the body, try to estimate the time of death. Then they'll take her away. They don't like to move the body until the forensic pathologist has seen it and certified that life is extinct.'

Roma Lisle said:

'What a lot of curious information you have acquired for a girl who calls herself a secretary-companion. But of course, I forgot. Ambrose tells us that you're a private eye. So perhaps you'll explain why we've all had to have our fingerprints taken. I found it particularly offensive, the way they take hold of your fingers and press them down on the pad. It wouldn't be so repulsive if you were allowed to do it yourself.'

Cordelia said:

'Didn't the police explain the reason? If they find any prints in Clarissa's room they want to be able to eliminate ours.'

'Or identify them. And what else are they doing, apart from grilling George? God knows they've brought enough men with them.'

'Some of them are probably scientific officers from the forensic science laboratory. Or they may be what are called scene-of-crime officers. They'll collect the scientific evidence, samples of blood and body fluids. They'll take away the bedclothes and the cup and saucer. And they'll analyse the dregs of tea to find but if she was poisoned. She could have been drugged before she was killed. She was lying very peaceably on her back.'

Roma said:

'It didn't need a drug for Clarissa to lie peaceably on her back.'

Then she saw their faces. Her own went scarlet and she cried: 'I'm sorry! I shouldn't have said that. It's just that I can't

really believe it; I can't picture her lying there, battered to death.

I haven't that kind of imagination. She was alive. Now she's

dead. I didn't like her and she didn't like me. Death can't alter

that for either of us.' She almost stumbled to the door.

'I'm going for a walk. I've got to get out of this place. If Grogan wants me he can come and find me.'

Ambrose refilled the teapot and poured himself another cup; then seated himself leisurely next to Cordelia.

'That's what surprises me about political commitment. Her cousin, the woman she was practically brought up with, is messily done to death and will shortly be carted off to be scientifically carved up by a Home Office pathologist. She's shocked, obviously. But basically she cares as little as if she'd been told that Clarissa was inconvenienced by a mild attack of fibrositis. But one mention of poor Ralston's Union of British Patriots and she's hysterical with outrage.'

Ivo said:

'She's frightened.'

'That's obvious, but what of? Not that pathetic bunch of amateur warriors?'

'They frighten me occasionally. I suppose she was right about the money and Ralston will get most of it. How much is that?'

'My dear Ivo, I don't know. Clarissa never confided the details of her personal finances, we weren't that close.'

‘I rather thought you were.'

'And even if we had been, I doubt whether she would have told. That's one surprising fact about Clarissa. You won't believe this but it's true. She loved to gossip, but she could keep a secret when she wanted to. Clarissa liked hoarding, and that included nuggets of useful information.'

Ivo said lightly:

'How unexpected, and how very dangerous.'

Cordelia looked at them, at Ambrose's bright malicious eyes, at Ivo's barely coveretl skeleton angularly disposed in his chair, at the long bony hands drooping from wrists which looked too thin and brittle to hold them, at the putty-coloured face with its jutting bones turned upwards to the stuccoed ceiling. She was seized with a confusion of feelings; anger, a deep unfocused pity, and a less familiar emotion which she recognized as envy. They were so secure in their sardonic, half-humorous detachment. Could anything really touch their hearts or nerves except the possibility of their own pain? And even physical pain, that universal leveller, they would meet with wry disgust or derisive contempt. Wasn't that how Ivo was facing his own death? Why should she expect them to grieve because a woman neither of them had greatly liked was lying upstairs with her face smashed in? And yet it wasn't necessary to affirm Donne's overworked aphorism to feel that something was owed to a death, that something in their relationships, in the castle itself, in the very air they breathed, had been touched and subtly altered. Suddenly she felt very alone and very young. She was aware of Ambrose looking at her. As if he had read her thoughts he said:

'Part of the horror of murder is that it does the dead out of their rights. I don't suppose anyone in this room is personally desolated by Clarissa's death. But if she'd died a natural death, at least we'd be mourning her in the sense that we'd be thinking of her with that confused mixture of regret, sentimentality and sympathetic interest which is the normal tribute to the recently dead. As it is, all we're thinking of is ourselves. Well, aren't we? Aren't we?'

Ivo said:

'I don't think Cordelia is.'

The library enclosed them again in its silence. But their ears were abnormally alert to every creak and three heads jerked upwards simultaneously at the sound of muffled footfalls across the hall and the distant thud, faint but unmistakable, of a closing door. Ivo said quietly:

'I think they're taking her away.'

He moved silently behind one of the curtains and Cordelia followed. Between the wide lawns, frosted by moonlight, four dark and enlongated figures, shadowless as phantoms, bent to their task. Behind them paced Sir George, stiff-legged and erect, as if his sword clanked at his side. The small procession looked like a group of mourners surreptitiously burying their dead according to some esoteric and prohibited rite. Cordelia, drained by shock and tiredness, wished she could feel some personal and appropriate response of pity. But there came into her mind instead a whisper of atavistic horror, images of plague and secret murder, de Courcy's men disposing of his victims under the cloak of night. It seemed to her that Ivo had stopped breathing. He didn't speak but she sensed through the contact of his rigid shoulder the intensity of his gaze. Then the curtains parted and Ambrose stood behind them. He said:

'She arrived in the morning sun and leaves by moonlight. But I should be out there. Grogan should have told me they were ready to take her away. Really, that man's behaviour is becoming intolerable!'

And so it was, thought Cordelia, that Clarissa left on her final journey from Courcy Island, on that note of slightly peevish complaint.

An hour later the door opened and Sir George came in. He must have been aware of their inquiring looks, of the question which no one cared to ask. He said:

'Grogan was perfectly civil, but I don't think he's formed any theories. I suppose he knows his business. That red hair must be a disadvantage – disguise you know.'

Ambrose said gravely, controlling the twitching of his mouth:

'I think detection at this level is chiefly desk-work. I don't suppose he does much lurking in the undergrowth.'

'Must do some field work, keep his hand in. He could dye it I suppose.'

He picked up the Spectator and settled himself at the chart table as much at ease as if he were in his London club. The others stood and regarded him in baffled silence. Cordelia thought: We're behaving like candidates at an oral examination who'd rather like to know what questions to expect but feel that it would be taking an unfair advantage actually to ask. The same thought must have struck Ivo. He said:

'The police aren't running a competition for their favourite suspect of the year. I confess to some curiosity about their strategy and technique. Reviewing Agatha Christie at the Vaudeville is a poor preparation for the real thing. So how did it go, Ralston?'

Sir George looked up from his journal and appeared to give the question serious thought. 'Much as you'd expect. Where exactly was I and what was I doing this afternoon? I told them I was bird-watching on the west cliffs. Told them, too, that I'd seen Simon coming ashore through my binoculars on the way home. Seemed to think that was important. Asked about Clarissa's money. How much? Who gets it? Grogan wasted twenty minutes asking me about bird-life on Courcy. Trying to put me at my ease, I suppose. A bit odd, I thought.'

Ivo said:

'Trying to catch you out more likely with cunning traps about the nesting habits of non-existent species. What about this morning? Are we expected to detail every waking moment of the day?'

His voice was carefully casual, but all four of them knew what it was he was asking and the importance of the reply. Sir George took up his journal again. Without looking up he said:

'Didn't say more than I needed. Told them about the visit to the Church and the Devil's Kettle. Mentioned the drowning but didn't give names. No point in confusing the investigation with old history. Not their concern.'

Ivo said:

'You reassure me. That's rather the line I propose to take. I'll have a word with Roma when the opportunity arises and you, Ambrose, might speak to the boy. As Ralston says, there's no point in confusing them with old, unhappy, far-off things and battles long ago.'

No one replied, but Sir George suddenly looked up over his journal:

'Sorry, I forgot. They want to see you now, Cordelia.'

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Cordelia could understand why Ambrose had offered the business room for the use of the police. It was appropriately furnished as an office, it wasn't too large and it kept them well out of his way. But as she seated herself in the mahogany and cane chair and faced Chief Inspector Grogan across the desk, she wished that Ambrose had chosen any room other than this private museum of murder. The Staffordshire figures on the wall shelf behind Grogan's head seemed to have grown, no longer quaintly fashioned antiques but real people, their bland, painted faces glowing and twisting into life. And the framed Victorian broadsheets with their crudely drawn scaffolds and death cells were intrusive in their horror, stark celebrations of the cruelty of man to man. The room itself was smaller than she remembered and she felt herself closeted with her interrogators in frightening and claustrophobic proximity. She was only half aware that there was a uniformed woman police officer sitting almost motionless in the corner by the window, watchful as a chaperone. Did they think that she would faint or accuse Grogan of assaulting her? She wondered briefly whether it was the same anonymous officer who had helped move her clothes and belongings from the De Morgan room to her new bedroom. She had no doubt that they had been thoroughly examined before being neatly arranged on the bed.

She found herself studying Grogan for the first time. He seemed even larger than the tall, broad figure she had first watched alighting from the police launch. The strong red-gold hair was longer than one would expect on a police officer; one swathe fell across his forehead and from time to time he would sweep it back with a huge hand. Despite its size, his face with its jutting cheekbones and deep-set eyes gave an impression of gauntness. Under each cheekbone, a brush of hair increased the sense of rough animality, an impression oddly at variance with the excellent cut of his formal tweed suit. His skin was ruddy so that his whole appearance was of redness; even the whites of his eyes seemed bloodshot. When he moved his head, Cordelia could glimpse, under his immaculate collar, the clear dividing line between the sunburnt face and his white neck. It was so marked that he looked like a man who had been decapitated and joined together again. She tried to imagine him, red-bearded, as an Elizabethan adventurer, but the image was subdy wrong. For all his strength, he wouldn't have been found among the men of action but secretly scheming in the closets of power. Might he perhaps have been discovered in that dreaded room at the Tower working the levers of the rack? But that was unfair. She thrust the morbid images out of her mind and made herself remember what he in fact was; a twentieth-century senior police officer, bound by Force regulations, restricted by Judges' Rules, doing a vital if disagreeable job and entitled to her cooperation. Yet she wished that she wasn't so frightened. She had expected to feel anxiety, but not this rush of humiliating terror. She managed to master it but was miserably aware that Grogan, experienced as he was, had recognized it and that it wasn't unwelcome to him.

He listened in silence while, at his request, she recounted the sequence of events between the arrival of Sir George at Kingly Street and her discovery of Clarissa's body. She had handed over the collection of messages and they were spread out on the desk before him. From time to time, as her quiet voice rose and fell, he shifted them about as if searching for some meaningful pattern. She was glad that she wasn't wired up to a lie machine. Surely the needle must have leapt as she came to those moments when, although she told no direct untruth, she carefully omitted the facts which she had decided not to tell; the death of Tolly's child, Clarissa's disclosure in the Devil's Kettle, Roma's unsuccessful appeal to her cousin for money. She didn't try to justify these suppressions by pretending that they wouldn't be of interest to him. She was too tired now to make up her mind about the morality of her decision. She only knew that, even when recalling Clarissa's battered face, there were things that she couldn't bring herself to tell.

He made her go over her story again and again, particularly pressing her about the locking of the bedroom doors. Was she absolutely certain that she had heard Clarissa turn her key? How could she be so sure that she had, in fact, locked her own door? Sometimes she wondered whether he were deliberately trying to confuse her as a counsel for the defence might, pretending to be obtuse, pretending that he hadn't quite understood. She was increasingly aware of her own tiredness, of his strong hand lying in the pool of light from the desk lamp, the ruddy hair gleaming on the back of his fingers, of the soft rustle as Sergeant Buckley turned the page. She must have been speaking for well over an hour before he finished the long interrogation and both their voices fell silent. Then he said suddenly, as if rousing himself from boredom:

'So you call yourself a detective, Miss Gray?' 'I don't call myself anything. I own and run a detective agency.'

'That's a nice distinction. But we haven't time to go into it now. You tell me that Sir George Ralston employed you as a detective. That's why you were here when his wife died. Suppose you tell me what you've detected so far.'

'I was employed to look after his wife. I let her be killed.'

'Now, let's get this straight. Are you telling me that you stood by and let someone kill her?'

'No.'

'Or killed her yourself?' 'No.'

'Or encouraged, or helped or paid anyone else to kill her?' 'No.'

'Then stop feeling sorry for yourself. Presumably you didn't think she was in any real danger. Nor did her husband. Nor did the Metropolitan Police apparently.'

Cordelia said:

'I thought that they might have had a reason for scepticism.' His eyes were suddenly sharp. 'You did?'

'I wondered whether Miss Lisle sent one of the notes herself, the one typed on her husband's typewriter. He was in America at the time so he couldn't have posted it to her himself.'

'And why should she do that?'

'To try to exonerate Sir George. I think she was afraid that the police might suspect him. Don't they usually think of the husband first? She wanted to make sure that he was in the clear, perhaps because she didn't want the police to waste their time on him, perhaps because she genuinely knew that he wasn't guilty. I think the Metropolitan Police might have suspected that she sent the message herself.'

Grogan said:

'They did more than suspect it. They tested the saliva on the flap of the envelope. It belonged to a secretor with the same blood group as Miss Lisle, and that group is rare. They asked her to type an innocuous note for them, a message which had some of the same letters and in the same order as the quotation. On that evidence»they suggested, tactfully, that she might have sent the note. She denied it. But you could hardly expect them to take the death threats very seriously after that.'

So she had been right. Clarissa had sent that one message. But she might be wrong about the reason. It had, after all, been clumsily done, and had it really exonerated Sir George? But it had ensured that the police took no further interest in what they must have seen as the time-wasting mischief of an attention-seeking and probably neurotic woman. And that would have suited the real culprit very well. Had anyone suggested to Clarissa that she should send that one note herself? And had it been the only one for which she had been responsible? Could the whole sequence of quotations be an elaborate conspiracy between herself and one other person? But Cordelia rejected that theory almost as soon as it came into her mind. Of one thing she was sure: Clarissa had dreaded the arrival of the messages. No actress could have simulated that fear. She had been convinced that she would die. And she had died.

Cordelia was aware that the two men were looking at her intently. She had been sitting silently, hands curved in her lap, eyes lowered, occupied with thought. She waited for them to break the silence and when the Chief Inspector spoke she thought she could detect a different note in his voice which could have been respect.

'Did you deduce anything else about these notes?'

'I thought that they might have been sent by two different people, apart from Miss Lisle, I mean. I wasn't shown the first half dozen which she received. I thought it possible that they might have been different from the later communications. And most of the ones I saw, the ones I've handed over to you, can be found in The Penguin Dictionary of Quotations. I think that whoever typed them had that book in front of him and typed from the text.'

'On different machines?'

'That wouldn't be difficult. They aren't new machines and the makes are different. There are numerous shops in London and the suburbs which sell new and reconditioned typewriters and which put out a machine or two for people to try. It would be almost impossible to trace a machine if one went from shop to shop and typed a few lines in each.'

'And who do you suggest did?'

'I don't know.'

'And what about the original anonymous correspondent, the one you might say who had the bright idea in the first place?' 'I don't know that either.'

That was as far as she was willing to go. She had told them enough, perhaps too much. If they wanted motives, let them grub around for themselves. And there was one motive for the poison pen that she would never divulge. If Ivo Whittingham had kept silent about Tolly's tragedy, then so would she.

And then Grogan was speaking again, leaning over the desk towards her so that the powerful body, the strong coarse voice surged towards her, palpable as a force.

'Let's get one thing straight, shall we? Miss Lisle was battered to death. You know what happened to her. You saw the body. Now, she may not have been a good or likeable woman. That has nothing to do with it. She had as much right to live her life to the last natural moment as you or I or any creature under the Queen's peace.'

'Of course. I don't see why that needs saying.'

Why did her own voice sound so small, almost peevish?

'You'd be surprised what needs saying in a murder investigation. It's the most powerful mutual protection society in the world, the trade union of the living. It's the living you'll be thinking about, wanting to protect, yourself most of all of course. My job is to think of her.'

'You can't bring her back.'

The words, torn out of her, fell between them in all their sad banality.

'No, but I can stop someone else from going the same way. No one is more dangerous than a successful murderer. I'm boring you with platitudes because I want you to get one thing straight. You may be too bright for your own good, Miss Gray. You're not here to solve this crime. That's my job. You're not here to protect the living. Leave that to their lawyers. You're not even here to protect the dead. They're beyond needing your condescension. On doit des regards aux vivants; on ne doit aux morts que la verité. You're an educated young woman. You know what that means.'

'"We owe respect to the living; to the dead we owe only truth." It's Voltaire, isn't it? But I was taught a different pronunciation.'

As soon as the words were out she was ashamed. But to her surprise his only response was a bellow of laughter.

'I bet you were, Miss Gray. I bet you were. I taught myself with a primer and a key to phonetics. But think about it. There's no better motto for a detective, and that includes female private eyes who would like to help the police but still be able to lie abed with a good conscience. It can't be done, Miss Gray. It can't be done.'

She didn't reply. After a moment, Grogan said:

'What surprises me a little, Miss Gray, is how much you noticed and how carefully when you found the body. Most people, and not only young women, would have been in a state of shock.'

Cordelia thought that he was entitled to the truth, or as much as she herself understood of it.

'I know. That has surprised me too. I think what happened was that I couldn't bear to feel too much emotion. It was so horrible that it was almost unreal. My intellect took over and made it into a kind of detective puzzle because, if I hadn't concentrated on detaching myself from the horror, examining the room, noticing little things like the lipstick smear on the cup, it would have been unbearable. Perhaps that's how doctors feel at the scene of an accident. You have to keep your mind on procedures and techniques because, otherwise, you might realize that what you have lying there is a human being.'

Sergeant Buckley said quietly:

'It's how a policeman trains himself to behave at the scene of an accident. Or a murder.'

Without taking his eyes from Cordelia, Grogan said:

'You find that credible then, do you Sergeant?' 'Yes, sir.'

Fear sharpens perception as well as the senses. Glancing at Sergeant Buckley's handsome, rather heavy face, at the controlled self-satisfied smile, Cordelia doubted whether he had ever in his life needed such an expedient against pain and wondered whether he was trying to signal his sympathy or was colluding with his superior in some pre-arranged interrogatory ploy. The Chief Inspector said:

'And what exactly did your intellect deduce when it had so conveniently taken over from your emotions?'

'The obvious things: that the curtains had been drawn although they weren't when I left, that the jewel box was missing, that the tea had been drunk. And I thought it odd that Miss Lisle had cleaned the make-up from her face but that there was a lipstick stain on the cup. That surprised me. I think she has – she had -sensitive lips and used a creamy lipstick which does smear easily. So why hadn't it come off when she ate her lunch? It looked as if she must have made up her lips again before she drank her tea. But if so, why had she taken off the rest of her make-up? The balls of stained cotton wool were all over the dressing-table top. And I noticed that there wasn't as much blood as one would expect from a head wound. I thought it possible that she might have been killed some other way and the injuries to her face made afterwards. And I was puzzled about the pads over her eyes. They must have been put there after death. I mean, it wouldn't be possible for them to stay so neatly in place while her face was being destroyed.'

After she had finished there was a long silence. Then Grogan said, his voice expressionless:

'You're sitting on the wrong side of the desk, Miss Gray.'

Cordelia waited. Then she said, hoping that she wasn't doing more harm than good:

'There's one thing more I ought to tell you. I know that Sir George can't have killed his wife. I'm sure that you wouldn't suspect him, anyway, but there is something you should know. When he first arrived in the bedroom and I blurted out how sorry I was he looked at me with a kind of amazed horror. I realized that he thought for a moment that I'd killed her, that I was confessing.' 'And you weren't?'

'Not to murder. Only to failure to do what I was here for.'

He changed the tack of his questioning again.

'Let's go back to the Friday night, the time when you were with Miss Lisle in her room and she showed you the secret drawer in her jewel box. That review of the Rattigan play. Are you sure that that is what it in fact was?'

'Quite sure.'

'The paper wasn't a document or a letter.'

'It was a newspaper cutting. And I read the headline.'

'And at no time did your client – and she was your client, remember – ever give you the least indication that she knew or suspected who it was threatening her?'

'No, never.'

'And she had no enemies as far as you know.' 'None that she told me of.'

'And you yourself can throw no light on why and by whom she was killed?' 'No.'

It must, she thought, feel like this to be in the witness box, the careful questions, the even more careful answers, the longing to be released.

He said:

'Thank you, Miss Gray. You've been helpful. Not, perhaps, as helpful as I'd hoped. But helpful. And it's early days yet. We shall be talking again.'

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

After Cordelia had left, Grogan relaxed in his chair: 'Well, what do you think of her?'

Buckley hesitated, uncertain whether his chief wanted an assessment of the last interviewee as a woman or as a suspect. He said cautiously:

'She's attractive. Like a cat.' Since this evoked no immediate response he added: 'Self-contained and dignified.'

He was rather pleased with the description. It had, he thought, a certain cleverness while committing him to nothing. Grogan began doodling on the blank sheet in front of him, a complicated mathematical design of triangles, squares and precisely interlacing circles spread over the page and reminding Buckley of the more obscure of his school geometry problems. He found it difficult not to fix his eyes obsessively on isosceles triangles and bisecting arcs. He said:

'Do you think she did it, sir?'

Grogan began filling in his design.

'If she did, it was during those fifty-odd minutes when she claims she was taking the sun on the bottom step of the terrace, conveniently out of sight and sound. She had time and opportunity. We've only her word that she locked her bedroom door or that Miss Lisle actually locked hers. And even if both doors and the communicating one were locked, Gray is probably the only person Lisle would have let in. She knew where the marble was kept. She was up and about early this morning when Gorringe first discovered that it was missing. She has a locked cabinet in her room where she could have kept it safely hidden. And we know that the final message, like the one typed on the back of the woodcut, was typed on Gorringe's machine. Gray can type and she had access to the business room where it's kept. She's intelligent, and she can keep her head even when I'm trying to needle her into losing it. If she did have a hand in it, my guess is that it was as Ralston's accomplice. His explanation of why she was called in sounded contrived. Did you notice how she and Ralston gave almost identical accounts of his visit to Kingly Street, what he said, what she said? It was so neat it could have been rehearsed. It probably was.'

But Buckley could think of an objection and he voiced it.

'Sir George was a soldier. He's used to getting his facts right. And she has a good memory, particularly for important events. And that visit was important. He probably paid well, and it could have led to other jobs. The fact that they gave the same account, got the details right, speaks as much for innocence as guilt.'

'According to both of them, that's the first time they met. If they are conspirators, they must have got together before then. Whatever there is between them, it shouldn't be too difficult to grub it out.'

'They're an unlikely couple. I mean, it's difficult to see what they have in common.'

'Politics rather than bed I imagine. Although, when it comes to sex, nothing is too bizarre to be ruled out. Police work teaches you that if nothing else. She could have taken a fancy to being Lady Ralston. There must be easier ways of getting money than running a detective agency. And Ralston will have money, remember. His wife's, to be specific. And I don't suppose that will come before it's needed. He must be spending a packet on that organization of his – the UBP or whatever they call it. And that's an odd business if you like. I suppose you can argue a case for an amateur force trained and ready to support the civil power in an emergency, but isn't that what General Walker has in hand? So what exactly do George Ralston and his geriatric conspirators think they're up to?'

As Buckley didn't know the answer and had, in fact, hardly heard of the Union of British Patriots, he wisely kept silent. Then he said:

'Did you believe Gray when she said that Sir George thought that she was confessing?'

'What Miss Gray thought she saw in Sir George's face isn't evidence. And no doubt he did look amazed if he thought he heard her confessing to a murder he'd done himself.'

Buckley thought about the girl who had just left them; saw again that gentle, uplifted face, the immense and resolute eyes, the delicate hands folded like a child's in her lap. She was keeping something back, of course; but didn't they all? That didn't make her a murderess. And the idea of her and Ralston together was ludicrous and disgusting. Surely the Chief hadn't yet reached the age when he needed to start believing that pathetic old lie with which the middle-aged and the elderly deceived themselves, that the young find them physically attractive? What they can do, the old goats, he told himself, is to buy youth and sex with money and power and prestige. But Tie didn't believe that Sir George Ralston was in that market or that Cordelia Gray could be bought. He said stolidly:

'I can't see Miss Gray as a murderess.'

'It takes an effort of the imagination I grant you. But that's probably what Mr Blandy thought of Miss Blandy. Or L'Angelier of Miss Madeleine Smith, come to that, before she so unkindly handed him his cocoa and arsenic through the basement railings.'

'Wasn't there a verdict of not proven in that case, sir?'

'A fainthearted Glasgow jury who should have known better and probably did. But we're theorizing in advance of facts. We need the PM result and we need to know what, if anything, was in that tea. Doc Ellis-Jones will probably get her on the slab tomorrow, Sunday or no Sunday. Once he's got his hands on the body he's quick enough at his butchering, I'll say that for him.'

'And the lab, sir. How long are they likely to take?'

'God knows. It's not as if we've any idea what they're supposed to be looking for. There isn't an unlimited number of drugs which can put you out, or kill you, within a short time and with no obvious signs on the body. But there are enough to keep them busy for the next few days if this is the only murder on the stocks. We may get a clue from the PM of course. Meanwhile we get on with the London end. How well did any of these people know each other before they arrived on the island this weekend? What, if anything, do the Met know about Cordelia Gray and her agency? What did Simon Lessing really feel about his benefactress and how, exactly, did his father die? Is Miss Tolgarth quite the devoted dresser cum family retainer that we're supposed to believe? What sort of money is Sir George spending on his toy soldiers? How much exactly is Roma Lisle going to get under the will and how badly does she need it? And that's just for starters.'

And none of it, thought Buckley, was the kind of information people came running to give you with happy smiles. It meant talking to bank managers, lawyers, friends, acquaintances and colleagues of the suspects, most of whom would know to a word just how far they needed to go. In theory everyone wanted murderers caught, just as in theory they all approved of hostels for the mentally ill in the community, provided they weren't built at the bottom of their garden. It would be simpler for the police as well as reassuring to the house party at the castle if they did discover those convenient young burglars hiding terrified somewhere on the island. But he didn't believe that they existed and nor, he suspected, did anyone else. And it would be a tamely disappointing ending to the case. What glory would there be in pulling in a couple of terrified local villains who'd killed on impulse and wouldn't have the nous even to keep their mouths shut until they got a brief. There was an intelligence at work here. The case was exactly the kind of challenge he enjoyed and which police work so seldom provided.

'There are facts. There are suppositions. There are beliefs. Learn to keep them separate, Sergeant. All men die: fact. Death may not be the end: supposition. There's pie in the sky when you die: belief. Lisle was murdered: fact. She received anonymous communications: fact. Other people were there when they arrived. They threatened her life: supposition. They were a bloody sight more likely to put her off her stroke as an actress. They terrified her: supposition. That's what her husband tells us and what she told Miss Gray. But she was an actress, remember. The thing about actresses is that they act. Suppose she and her husband concocted the whole scheme, threatening messages, apparent terror and distress, breakdown in the middle of a play, calling in a private eye, the lot.'

'I don't see why, sir.'

'Nor do I, yet. Would any actress willingly humiliate herself on stage? God knows. Actors are an alien breed to me.'

'If she knew that she was finished as an actress, could she and her husband have concocted the messages to provide a public excuse for failure?'

'Over-ingenious and unnecessary. Why not just pretend that her health has failed? And she didn't make the messages public. On the contrary, she seems to have taken care to prevent the news getting out. Would any actress wish her public to know that someone hated her that much? Don't they crave to be loved by all the world? No, I was thinking of something rather more subtle. Ralston somehow persuades her into pretending that her life is threatened, and then kills her, having, as it were, seduced her into conniving at her own murder. My God, that would be neat. Too neat, perhaps.'

'But why take the risk of calling in Miss Gray?'

'What risk? She could hardly discover that the letters were faked, not in one short weekend. A very, short weekend as far as Lisle was concerned. Employing Gray gave the final artistic touch to the whole plan.'

'I still think he'd have been taking a risk.'

'That's because we've seen the girl. She's intelligent and she knows her job. But Ralston wasn't to know that. Who was she, after all? The proprietor of a one-woman detective agency, apparently. After Lisle first met her at the house of that friend of hers – Mrs Fortescue wasn't it? – she probably suggested to Ralston that they call her in. That's why she never bothered to interview the girl herself. Why trouble when the whole thing was a ploy?'

'It's ingenious, sir, but it still begs the question why Lisle should have connived in it all. I mean, what possible reason could Ralston give to persuade her to pretend that her life was threatened?'

'What, indeed, Sergeant? Like Miss Gray, I'm in danger of being too clever for my own good. But one thing I'm sure of. The murderer spent the day under this roof. And I've a choice bunch of suspects. Sir George Ralston, baronet, something of a war hero and darling of the geriatric Right. A distinguished theatre critic, one even I have actually heard of. Seriously ill too, by the look of him, which means that he'll probably die on me under the gentlest interrogation. Interrogation. Odd how one dislikes that word. Too many echoes of the Gestapo and KGB I suppose. A best-selling novelist who not only owns the island but happens to be friendly with the Cottringhams who have the ear of the Lord Lieutenant, the Chief Constable, the MP and anyone else who matters in the County. A respectable bookseller ex-schoolteacher who's probably a member of the civil rights and women's lib lobbies and who will protest to her MP about police harassment if I raise my voice to her. And a school kid – and sensitive with it. I suppose I should be grateful that he's not a juvenile.'

'And a butler, sir.'

'Thank you for reminding me, Sergeant. We mustn't forget the butler. I regard the butler as a gratuitous insult on the part of fate. So let's give the gentry in the library-a respite and hear what Munter has to tell us.'

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Buckley noted with irritation that Munter, invited by Grogan to sit, managed in the mere act of lowering his buttocks on to the chair to suggest both that it was unseemly for him to seat himself in the business room and that Grogan had committed a social solecism in inviting him to do so. He couldn't remember ever having seen the man in Speymouth; his was certainly not an appearance one was likely to forget. Watching Munter's strong and lugubrious face on which the unease proper to his present situation was noticeably absent he found himself prepared to disbelieve everything he heard. It seemed to him suspicious that a man should want to make himself more grotesque than nature had intended and if this was Munter's way of cocking a snook at the world he had better not try it on with the police. Basically conforming and ambitious, Buckley had no resentment of those wealthier than himself; he had every intention of eventually joining them. But he despised and distrusted those who chose to earn their living by pandering to the rich and suspected that Grogan shared this prejudice. He watched them both with a wary and critical eye and wished that he was taking a more active part in the interrogation. Never had his chief's insistence that he sit silent unless invited to speak, watch carefully and take unobtrusive shorthand notes seemed more restrictive and demeaning. Morbidly sensitive to any nuance of condescension he felt that the glance Munter casually gave him conveyed a slight surprise that he should have been allowed into the house.

Grogan, seated at the desk, leaned back in his chair so strongly that its back creaked, twirled round to face Munter and splayed his legs wide as if to assert his right to feel perfectly at home. He said:

'Suppose you begin by telling us who you are, where you came from and what precisely is your job here.'

'My duties, sir, have never been precisely defined. This is not altogether an orthodox household. But I am in charge of all the domestic arrangements and supervise the two other members of staff, my wife and Oldfield, who is the gardener, handyman and boatman. Any additional help necessary when Mr Gorringe is entertaining or has house guests is obtained on a temporary basis from the mainland. I look after the silver and the wine and wait at table. The cooking is generally shared. My wife is the pastry cook and Mr Ambrose himself occasionally cooks a meal. He is fond of preparing savouries.'

'Very tasty, I'm sure. And how long have you been part of this unorthodox household?'

'My wife and I came into Mr Gorringe's service in July 1978 three months after his return from a year abroad. He had inherited the castle from his uncle in 1977. Perhaps you would wish for a brief curriculum vitae. I was born in London in 1940 and educated at Pimlico Primary and. Secondary Schools. I then took a course in hotel catering and for seven years worked in hotels here and abroad. But I decided that institutional life was unsuited to my temperament and entered private services firstly with an American business gentleman living in London and then, when he returned home, here in Dorset with his lordship at Bossington House. I am sure my previous gentleman will speak for me if necessary.'

'No doubt. If I were looking for a manservant you'd do very nicely. But I'll be consulting a more objective character reference source, the Criminal Records Office. Does that worry you?'

'It offends me, sir. It doesn't worry me.'

Buckley wondered when Grogan would stop this needling and get down to the main inquiry, what Munter had been doing between the ending of lunch and the finding of the body. If these preliminaries were meant to provoke the witness they weren't succeeding. But Grogan knew his business, at least the Met had appeared to think so. He had come to Dorset burdened with something of a reputation. Now he stopped looking at Munter; his voice became conversational: 'This play. It was to be a regular event, was it? An annual drama festival perhaps?'

'I have no means of knowing. Mr Gorringe did not confide his plans to me.'

'Once was enough, I should think. It must have made a lot of extra work for you and your wife.'

Munter's slow and disapproving glance round the business room was an inventory of unwelcome change; the slight rearrangement of the furniture, Buckley's jacket slung over the back of his chair, the coffee-tray with the two stained cups, its surface crumbed with half-eaten biscuits. He said:

'The domestic inconvenience occasioned by Lady Ralston living was nugatory compared with the inconvenience of Lady Ralston murdered.'

Grogan held his pen in front of his face and peered at its tip, moving it backwards and forwards as if testing his eyesight.

'You found her a pleasant, likeable guest, easy to get on with?'

'That was not a question to which I addressed myself.'

'Address yourself to it now.'

'Lady Ralston seemed a very agreeable lady.'

'No trouble? No disagreements? No rows as far as you knew?'

'None, sir. A great loss to the English stage.' He paused and added woodenly:

'And, of course, to Sir George Ralston.'

It was impossible to judge whether the statement was ironic, but Buckley wondered whether Grogan, too, had caught the clear bite of contempt. Grogan rocked back in his chair, legs stretched, and stared consideringly at his witness. Munter gazed ahead with a look of patient resignation and, after a minute of silence, permitted himself a glance at his watch.

'Right! Let's get on with it. You know what we want, a full account of where you were, what you were doing and who you saw between one o'clock when lunch was over and two forty-three when Miss Gray found the body.'

According to Munter's account, he had spent the whole of that time on the ground floor of the castle chiefly moving between the dining-room, his pantry and the theatre. As he had been continually busy with preparations for the play and the supper party, it wasn't always possible to say where he had been or with whom at any particular moment in time, although he doubted whether he had ever been alone for more than a few minutes. He said in a voice which held no trace of regret, that he very much regretted not being able to be more precise, but he could not, of course, have known so detailed an account would subsequently be required. At first he had helped his wife clear away the luncheon and had then gone to check on the wine. There had then been three telephone calls to answer, one from a guest who was prevented by illness from attending the performance, a second inquiring about the time the launch would leave Speymouth, a call from Lady Cottringham's housekeeper to know whether they needed any extra glasses. He had been checking on the men's dressing-room when his wife had appeared backstage to ask him to look at one of the tea urns which she thought might not be working. It was unfortunate that they had to hire urns; Mr Gorringe had a strong dislike of them and complained that they made the great hall look like a meeting of the Women's Institute, but with an audience of eighty people and the cast to provide for, the use of the urns had been necessary.

At some time, he couldn't remember precisely when, he had remembered that Mr Gorringe had asked him to find a second musical-box for use in the Third Act of the play, Miss Lisle having expressed dissatisfaction with the one provided at the dress rehearsal. He had come here into the business room to fetch it from the walnut chiffonier. At this stage his eyes indicated what Buckley sourly thought could very well have been described as a cupboard. His Aunt Sadie had one like it, not as fancily carved on the doors or at the end of the shelves, but pretty much the same. She claimed it had been in the family for generations, kept it in the back parlour, and called it a dresser. She used it for the bits and pieces her kids brought back from holiday for her, cheap souvenirs from the Costa del Sol, Malta and, now, from Miami. He'd have to tell her that what she'd got was a chiffonier and she'd reply that he made it sound like a bloody ice-cream.

He turned the page of his notebook. Munter's resigned voice droned on. He had taken the second musical-box and placed it with the first one on the props table. Shortly afterwards, it could have been as late as two fifteen, Mr Gorringe had appeared and they had checked over the props together. By then it was time to go to the quay to meet the launch bringing the rest of the cast from Speymouth. He had gone with Mr Gorringe to receive them and had helped with the disembarkation. Mr Gorringe and he had escorted the gentlemen to their dressing-rooms and his wife and Miss Tolgarth had looked after the ladies. He had stayed backstage for about ten minutes and had then gone to his pantry where Mrs Chambers and her granddaughter were polishing glasses. He had had occasion to complain to the girl, Debbie, about a smeared glass and had supervised the arrangements to rewash them all. After that he had gone to the dining-room to collect the chairs together for the supper party which was to be held in the great hall. He had been there when Mr Gorringe had put his head in to inform him of Miss Lisle's murder.

Grogan sat with his great head lowered, as if bowed with the weight of assimilating this succinct account. Then he said quietly:

'You are, of course, devoted to Mr Gorringe.'

'Yes indeed, sir. When Mr Gorringe broke the news to me I said: What, in our house?'

'Quite Shakespearean. The Macbeth touch. And no doubt Mr Gorringe could riposte with: "Too awful anywhere"?'

'No doubt he could have, sir. Actually what he said was that I should go to the landing stage and prevent the guests from landing. He would follow as soon as possible and explain the lamentable circumstances which necessitated the cancellation of the performance.'

'The launches were then at the quay?'

'Not at that time. I judged that they were three-quarters of a mile away.'

'So there was no particular hurry to warn them?'

'It was not a matter to be left to chance. Mr Gorringe was anxious that the police investigation should not be hampered by the presence on the island of another eighty people in a state of confusion or distress.'

Grogan said:

'In a state of highly enjoyable excitement, more likely. Nothing like a good murder for a thrill. Or wouldn't you know?' 'I wouldn't know, sir.'

'Still, it was considerate of your master – I suppose that's what you call him – to have as his first thought the convenience of the police. Highly commendable. What was he doing, do you know, while you were wasting a certain amount of time at the quay?'

'I suppose that he was telephoning the police and acquainting his guests and the cast of the play with the fact of Lady Ralston's death. I have no doubt he will inform you if asked.'

'And how exactly did he acquaint you with the fact of Lady Ralston's death?'

'He told me that she had been battered to death. He instructed me to inform the guests when they arrived that she had been killed by a blow to the head. There was no need to harrow them unnecessarily. In the event I was not required to tell them anything as Mr Gorringe had joined me by the time the launches arrived.'

'A blow to the head. You have seen the body?'

'No, sir. Mr Gorringe locked the door of Lady Ralston's room after the discovery. There was no occasion for any of the staff to see the body.'

'But you have, no doubt, formed some opinion as to how this blow to the head was inflicted. You permitted yourself a theory, a little natural curiosity? You went so far, perhaps, as to discuss it with your wife?'

'It did occur to me to wonder whether the assault was connected with the missing marble hand. Mr Gorringe will have told you that the display case was forced in the early hours of this morning.'

'So suppose you tell us what you know about that.'

'The object was brought back to the castle by Mr Gorringe on his return from London on Thursday night and placed by him in the showcase. The showcase is kept locked since groups of visitors are shown round the castle during the summer months on days which are announced in advance and Mr Gorringe's insurance company has insisted on this degree of security. Mr Gorringe himself placed the hand in position, watched by me, and we had some conversation on its possible provenance. He then locked the showcase. The keys to the display cabinets are not, of course, kept on the key board with the house keys but in the bottom left locked drawer of the desk at which you are now sitting. The showcase was undamaged and the marble arm in place when I saw it shortly after midnight. Mr Gorringe found it in its present state when he was on his way to the kitchen just before seven o'clock. He is an early riser and prefers to make his own morning tea and carry the tray either on to the terrace or into the library depending on the state of the weather. We inspected the damage together.'

'You saw no one, heard nothing?'

'No, sir. I was busy in the kitchen preparing the early morning tea-trays.'

'And they were all there when you took up the early tea-trays?'

'The gentlemen were. I understand from my wife that the ladies were also in bed. Lady Ralston's early tea was taken up later by her maid, Miss Tolgarth. At about seven thirty Mr Gorringe came to tell me that Sir George had arrived unexpectedly, put ashore in the small bay west of the headland by a local fishing boat. I did not myself see him until I set breakfast on the hotplate in the small breakfast room at eight o'clock.'

'But anyone could have got into the house at any time after six five when you opened up the castle?'

'The back door leading to the great hall was unlocked by me at six fifteen. At the time I looked out over the lawn and the path leading to the beach and the coastal walk. I saw no one. But anyone could have entered and done the damage between six fifteen and seven o'clock.'

The rest of the interview was unfruitful. Munter appeared to repent of his loquacity and his answers became shorter. He had no idea that Lady Ralston was receiving poison-pen communications and had no suggestions to offer as to their origin. Shown one of the messages he fingered the paper with fastidious distaste and said that it was the kind he and his wife commonly bought but in cream not white. The castle writing paper had an engraved address and was of a different quality as the Chief Inspector would be able to check by opening the top left-hand drawer of the desk. He had not known that Mr Gorringe had given Lady Ralston one of his Victorian jewel caskets nor had he been told that it was missing. He could, however, describe the casket in question since there were only two in the castle. It had been made by a silversmith of Hunt and Rosken in 1850 and was thought to have been among their pieces shown at the Great Exhibition of 1851. It had been considered for use as a prop in the Third Act of the play but the larger and less valuable if more showy casket had been thought the better choice.

Grogan frowned, irritated by this display of irrelevant knowledge. He said:

'There's been murder done here, bloody murder of a defenceless woman. If there's anything you know, anything you suspect, anything that later occurs to you bearing on this crime I expect to be told it. The police are here, and we're here to stay. We may not always be physically present but we'll be around, we'll be concerned with this island, concerned with what happens here, and that means concerned with you, until the murderer is brought to justice. Have I made myself clear?'

Munter got to his feet. His face was still impassive. He said:

'Perfectly, sir. May I say that Courcy Island is used to murder. And the murderers commonly haven't been brought to justice. Perhaps you and your colleagues will have better luck.'

After he had left, there was a long silence which Buckley knew better than to interrupt. Then Grogan said:

'He thinks the husband did it, or he wants us to think that the husband did it. No marks for originality. It's what we're bound to think anyway. D'you know the Wallace case?'

'No, sir.' Buckley told himself that, if he were to continue working with Grogan, it would be as well to get hold of a copy of The Murderers' Who's Who.

'Liverpool, January 1931. Wallace, William Herbert. Inoffensive little insurance agent trotting round door to door and collecting the odd bob weekly from poor sods terrified they wouldn't be able to pay for their own funerals. Taste for chess and the violin. Married a bit above himself. He and his wife Julia lived in genteel poverty, which is the worst poverty of the lot in case you didn't know, and kept themselves to themselves. Then on 19th January, when he's out looking for the address of a prospective customer who may or may not exist, Julia gets her head savagely bashed in in her own front sitting-room. Wallace stood trial for the murder and a sturdy Liverpool jury, who probably weren't entirely unbiased, convicted. The Court of Criminal Appeal subsequently made legal history by quashing the verdict on the grounds that it was unsafe having regard to the evidence. So they let him go and he died of kidney disease two years later a bloody sight more slowly and painfully than he would have done at the end of a rope. It's a fascinating case. Every piece of evidence can point either way, depending on how you choose to look at it' I can lie awake at night thinking about it. It ought to be compulsory study for every detective constable, a warning of how a case can go wrong if the police get it fixed in their minds that it has to be the husband.'

Which was all very well, thought Buckley, but in these cases if the criminal statistics were to be believed, it usually was the husband. Grogan might be keeping an open mind but he had no doubt whose name featured at the head of his list. He said:

'They've got a cosy little set-up here, the Munters.'

'Haven't they just? Nothing to do but fuss around Gorringe while he knocks up his little savouries, polish the antique silver and wait on each other. But he lied about at least one thing. Look back to that interview with Mrs Chambers.'

Buckley thumbed back through his notebook. Mrs Chambers and her granddaughter had been two of the first interviewed since the woman had demanded that she be returned to the mainland in time to cook her husband's supper. She had been voluble, aggrieved and pugnacious, viewing the tragedy as one more trick of fate designed to cause domestic inconvenience. What chiefly concerned her was the waste of food; who, she had demanded, was going to eat a supper prepared for over a hundred? Buckley had been interested, thirty minutes later, to watch her waddling down to the launch with her granddaughter both lugging a couple of covered baskets. Some of the food, at least, would And its way down the gullets of the Chambers family. She and her granddaughter, a cheerful seventeen-year-old, apt to giggle in moments of emotion, had been busy, for the most part together or with Mrs Munter, for the whole of the critical time. Buckley privately thought that Grogan had wasted too much time on them and had resented having to record the woman's spate of irrelevances. He found the page at last and began to read, wondering if the old man was checking up on the accuracy of his shorthand.

'It's disgusting, that's what it is! I always say there's nothing worse than being killed away from home and by strangers. There never was anything like this when I was a girl. It's them mods on their motor cycles, that's who it is. Great crowd of them came roaring into Speymouth last Saturday with their noisy smelly machines. Why don't the police do something about it, that's what I want to know? Why don't you take their machines away and chuck them off the end of the pier, and their trousers too? That'd put a stop to it fast enough. Don't you waste time interviewing decent law-abiding women. Go after them motorcycling mods.' Buckley broke off.

'That's where you pointed out that even mods could hardly motorcycle to Courcy Island, and she replied darkly that they had their little ways, they were that cunning.'

Grogan said:

'Not that part. A little earlier when she was rabbiting on about the domestic arrangements.' Buckley flipped back a couple of pages.

'I'm always happy to oblige Mr Munter. I don't mind coming to the island for the odd day and bringing Debbie if wanted. And it wasn't the girl's fault if the glasses were smeary. They've no right to send them out like that. And Mr Munter had no call to go on at Debbie like he did. It's always the same when Lady Ralston's here. He gets his knickers in a twist when she's about, no mistake. We were here last Tuesday for the dress rehearsal and you never heard such goings on. Asking for this, asking for the other, nothing quite to her ladyship's liking. And forty of the cast for lunch and tea if you please. Everything had to be just so even if Mr Gorringe wasn't here. Took himself off to London Mr Munter said and I don't know as I blame him. Anyone would think she was mistress here. I said to Mr Munter, I don't mind helping out this time but if you're going to be stuck with this palaver next year you can count me out. That's what I said. Count me out. And he said not to worry. He reckoned that this would be the last play Lady Ralston would appear in on Courcy Island.'

Buckley stopped reading and looked at Grogan. He told himself that he should have remembered that piece of evidence. He must have taken it down in a fugue of boredom. Black mark. His chief said quietly:

'Yes, that's it. That's the passage I wanted. I'll be asking Munter for an explanation of that remark when the time's right, but not yet. It's as well to keep a few unpleasant shocks in hand. I've no doubt that Mrs Munter will be equally discreet when she obligingly confirms her husband's story. But we'll let the lady wait. I think it's time to hear what Miss Lisle's -host has to say for himself. You're a local man, Sergeant. What do you know of him?'

'Very little, sir. He opens the castle to visitors in the summer, but I imagine it's a ploy to get tax relief on the maintenance. He keeps himself to himself, discourages publicity.'

'Does he now? He'll get a bellyful of it before this case is finished. Put your head outside and ask Rogers to summon him with, of course, the usual compliments.'

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Buckley thought that he had never seen a murder suspect as much at ease under questioning as Ambrose Gorringe. He sat back in the chair opposite Grogan, immaculate in his dinner-jacket, and gazed across the desk with bright, interested eyes in which Buckley, occasionally glancing up from his note-taking, thought he could detect a gleam of amused contempt. Admittedly Gorringe was on his own ground, sitting, in fact, in his own chair. Buckley thought it rather a pity that the chief hadn't deprived him of this psychological advantage by bundling the lot of them off to Speymouth station. But Gorringe was too calm for his own good. If the husband didn't kill her, then here for his money was a close runner-up.

Now being formally questioned for the first time, he repeated without discrepancies the facts he had first briefly told them when they arrived on the island. He had known Miss Lisle from childhood – both their fathers had been in the diplomatic service and had been stationed for a time at the same embassies – but they had lost touch in recent years and had seen very little of each other until he had inherited the island from his uncle in 1977. The next year they had met at a theatrical first night and she had been invited to the island. He couldn't now remember whether the suggestion had come from him or from Miss Lisle. From that visit and her enthusiasm for the Victorian theatre had flowed the decision to stage a play. He had known about the threatening messages since he had been with her when one of them was delivered but she hadn't confided that they were still arriving, nor had she told him that Miss Gray was a private detective although he had suspected that she might be when she had confronted him with the woodcut pushed under Miss Lisle's door. It had been their joint decision not to worry Miss Lisle either with that or with the news that the marble limb had been stolen. He admitted without apparent concern that he had no alibi for the crucial ninety-odd minutes between one twenty and the discovery of the body. He had lingered over his coffee with Mr Whittingham, gone to his room at about one thirty leaving Whittingham on the terrace, had rested for about fifteen minutes until it was time to change and had left his room to go to the theatre shortly after two. Munter had been backstage and they had checked over the props together and discussed one or two matters relating to the after-show supper party. At about two twenty they had gone together to meet the launch bringing the cast from Speymouth and he had been backstage in the male dressing-room until about two forty-five. Grogan said:

'And the marble limb? That was last seen by you when?'

'Didn't I tell you, Chief Inspector? By me at about eleven thirty last night when I went to check the tide timetable. I was interested to estimate how long the launches would take on Saturday afternoon and returning to Speymouth that night. The water can run strongly between here and the mainland. Munter saw it in place just after midnight. I found that it was missing and the lock forced when I went to the kitchen at six fifty-five this morning.'

'And all the members of the house party had seen it and knew where it was kept.'

'All except Simon Lessing. He was swimming when the rest of the party were shown round the castle. As far as I know, he has never been near the business room.'

Grogan said:

'What is the boy doing here anyway? Shouldn't he be at school? I take it that Miss Lisle – Lady Ralston – was buying him a privileged education, that he isn't a day boy at the local comprehensive.'

The question could have sounded offensive, thought Buckley, if the carefully controlled voice had held a trace of emotion. Gorringe replied, equally calmly.

'He's at Melhurst. Miss Lisle wrote for special weekend leave. She may have thought that Webster would be educational. Unfortunately, the weekend has proved educational for the boy in ways she could hardly have foreseen.'

'A proper little mother to him was she?'

'Hardly that. Miss Lisle's maternal sense was, I should have thought, undeveloped. But she genuinely cared for the boy within her capacity. What you must understand about the victim in this case was that she enjoyed being kind, as indeed most of us do provided it doesn't cost us too much.'

'And how much did Mr Lessing cost her?'

'His school fees primarily. About £4,000 a year I suppose. She could afford it. It all began I imagine because she had a conscience about breaking up his parents' marriage. If she did, it was quite unnecessary. The man had a choice presumably.'

'Simon Lessing must have resented the marriage, on his mother's account if not his own. Unless, of course, he thought a rich step-mama a good exchange.'

'It was six years ago. He was barely eleven when his father walked out on him. And if you're suggesting, without much subtlety I may say, that he resented it enough to bash in step-mama's face, then he waited long enough to do it and he chose a singularly inappropriate time. Does Sir George Ralston know that you suspect Simon? He probably considers himself as the boy's stepfather. He'll want to take steps to see that the boy's interests are safeguarded if you're going on with that somewhat ridiculous idea.'

'I never said that we suspected him. And, in view of the boy's youth, I have agreed with Sir George that he shall be present when I speak to the boy. But Mr Lessing is seventeen. He's no longer a juvenile in law. I find these concerted measures to protect him interesting.'

'As long as you don't find them sinister. He was extremely shocked when I broke the news to him. His own parents are dead. He was devoted to Clarissa. It's natural that we should wish to minimize his pain. After all, you're hardly here in the capacity of child-care officers.'

Grogan had scarcely glanced at his witness during this exchange. The unlined notepad which he preferred to the normal police issue was on the desk blotter in front of him and he was sketching with his fountain pen. A careful oblong shape with two doors and two windows took shape under the huge speckled hand. Buckley saw that it was a representation of Clarissa Lisle's bedroom, something between a plan and a drawing… The proportions of the room were carefully to scale but small objects were being inserted, over-large and carefully detailed as a child might draw them; the jars of cosmetics, a box of cotton-wool balls, the tea-tray, the alarm clock. Suddenly and still without looking up, he asked:

'What made you go to her room, sir?'

'Just after Miss Gray went to call her? Merely a chivalrous impulse. I thought that, as her host, it would be seemly if I escorted her to her dressing-room. And there were things to be carried. Her make-up case for one. As we haven't much dressing-room accommodation and she was having to share with Miss Collingwood who plays Cariola, Miss Collingwood had undertaken to be dressed and out before the star wanted the room, but Miss Lisle wasn't going to risk anyone borrowing her greasepaint. So I went to carry the box and to escort the lady.'

'In the absence of her husband who would normally perform that service.'

'Sir George had just come in to change. We met at the top of the stairs as I've already explained.'

'You seem to have taken a lot of trouble for Miss Lisle.' He paused and added, 'One way or another.'

'Walking her two hundred yards from her room to the theatre hardly counts as trouble.'

'But putting on the play for her, restoring the theatre, entertaining her guests. It must have been an expensive business.'

'I'm not a poor man, happily. And I thought that you were here to investigate a murder not to inquire into my personal finances. The theatre, incidentally, was restored for my satisfaction not Miss Lisle's.'

'She wasn't hoping that you might partly finance her next professional appearance? What's the theatrical jargon, be her angel?'

'I'm afraid you've been gossiping to the wrong people. That particular angelic role has never attracted me. There are more amusing ways of losing money. But if you're trying tactfully to suggest that I may have owed Miss Lisle a favour, you're perfectly right. It was she who gave me the idea for Autopsy, my bestseller, in case you're one of the half-dozen who haven't heard of it.'

'She didn't write it for you, by any chance?'

'No, she didn't write it. Miss Lisle's talents were varied and egregious but they didn't extend to the written word. The book was fabricated rather than written, by an unholy triumvirate of my publisher, my agent and myself. It was then suitably packaged, promoted and marketed. No doubt there are sins to be laid to Clarissa's charge but Autopsy isn't one of them.'

Grogan let his pen drop from his hand. He leaned back in his chair and looked Gorringe full in the face. He said quietly:

'You knew Miss Lisle from childhood. For the last six months or so you've been intimately concerned with this play. She came here as your guest. She was killed under your roof. However she died, and we shan't know until after the post-mortem, the killer almost certainly used your marble to bash in her face. Are you sure that there is nothing you know, nothing you suspect, nothing she ever said to you that can throw any light on how she died?'

Put it any plainer, thought Buckley, and you'd have to be administering an official caution. He half expected Gorringe to reply that he would say nothing until he had seen his lawyer. But he spoke with the calm unconcern of a disinterested party who has been asked for his considered opinion and has no objection to giving it.

'My first thought – and it remains my theory – was that a trespasser had somehow gained access to the island knowing that my staff and I would be busy with preparations for the play and that the castle would be, as it were, undefended. He climbed up the fire escape, perhaps out of mischief or devilment and with no clear idea of what he meant to do. It could have been a young man.'

'The young usually hunt in gangs.'

'Several young men, then. Or a couple if you prefer it. One of them gets in with the general idea of a prowl round while the house is quiet That supposes a local boy, one who knew about the play. He creeps into Miss Lisle's room – she had forgotten to lock the communicating door or had thought the precaution unnecessary – and sees her apparently asleep on the bed. He is about to make his exit, with or without the jewel case, when she takes the pads off her eyes and sees him. In a panic he kills her, seizes the box and makes his escape the same way as he came in.'

Grogan said:

'Having thoughtfully provided himself in advance with the marble hand, which according to your evidence, must have been taken from the display case between midnight and six fifty-five this morning.'

'No, I don't think he came provided with anything except a general intention of mischief. My theory is that he found the weapon ready to hand – forgive the atrocious pun – on the bedside chest together, of course, with the quotation from the play.'

'And who are you suggesting put them there? The door to that room was locked, remember.’

'I don't think there's much mystery about that surely. Miss Lisle did.'

Grogan said:

'With the object of frightening herself into hysteria or merely providing any potential murderer who might drop in with a convenient weapon?'

'With the object of providing herself with an excuse if she failed in the play. As I'm afraid she almost certainly would. Or she may have had more devious reasons. Miss Lisle's complex personality was something of a mystery to me as it was, I suspect, to her husband.'

'And are you suggesting that this young, impulsive, unpremeditating killer then replaced the pads over his victim's eyes? That argues we have two complex personalities to elucidate.'

'He could have done. You're the expert on murder, not I. But I could think of a reason if pushed. Perhaps she seemed to be staring up at. him and his nerve broke. He had to cover those dead accusing eyes. The suggestion is a little over-imaginative perhaps, but not impossible. Murderers do behave oddly. Remember the Gutteridge case, Chief Inspector.'

Buckley's hand jerked on his shorthand pad. He thought: 'My God, is he doing it on purpose?' The small audacity must surely have been deliberate. But how could Gorringe have learned of the chief's habit of referring to old cases? He glanced up, not at Grogan, but at Gorringe and met only a look of bland innocence. And it was to him that Gorringe spoke:

'Long before your time, Sergeant. Gutteridge was the police constable shot by two car thieves in an Essex country lane in 1927. An ex-convict, Frederick Browne, and his accomplice William Kennedy were hanged for the crime. After killing him, one of them shot out both his eyes. It is thought that they were superstitious. They believed that the dead eyes of a murdered man, fixed on the killer's face, will bear his visage imprinted on the pupils. I doubt whether any murderer willingly looks into his victim's eyes. An interesting feature of an otherwise dull and sordid case.'

Grogan had finished his drawing. The plan of the room was complete. Now, while they watched him in silence, he drew on the great bed a small sprawled matchbox figure with wisps of hair over the pillow. Lastly and with care, he blocked in the face. Then he put his great hand over the drawing and ripped out the page, crumpling it in his fist. The gesture was unexpectedly violent, but his voice was quiet, almost gentle.

'Thank you, sir. You've been very helpful. And now, if you've nothing else to tell us, no doubt you'll be wanting to go back to your guests.'

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

When Ivo Whittingham came into the room, Buckley, embarrassed, looked quickly down and began flipping back the pages of his notebook, hoping that Whittingham hadn't caught his first look of horror and surprise. Only once before had he seen so gaunt a figure, and that was his Uncle Gerry in those last weeks before the cancer finally got him. He had felt as much affection for his uncle as he was capable of feeling and the protracted agony of his dying had left him with one resolution. If that was what the body could do to a man, then it owed something in return. From now on he would take his pleasures without guilt. He might have become a cheerful hedonist if ambition and the caution which went with it hadn't been stronger. But he hadn't forgotten either the bitterness or the pain. And Ivo Whittingham reminded him in another way. His uncle had looked at him with just such glittering eyes as if they burned with all that remained of life and intelligence. He glanced up as Whittingham seated himself stiffly, grasping the chair sides with his skeletal hands. But when he spoke his voice was surprisingly strong and relaxed.

'This is unpleasantly reminiscent of a summons to one's housemaster. Good seldom came of it.'

It was an irreverent beginning which Grogan was unlikely to encourage. He said curtly:

'In that case I suggest that we make it as brief as possible. I take it that you knew Miss Lisle well.'

'You may take it that I knew her intimately.' 'Are you telling me, sir, that she was your mistress?'

'That hardly seems the right word for so spasmodic a liaison. Mistress suggests a certain permanence, even a measure of respectability. One is reminded of dear Mrs Keppel and her King. It would be more accurate to say that we were lovers for a period of about six years as opportunity and her whim dictated.'

'And did her husband know?'

'Husbands. Our relationship outlasted more than one marital episode. But I imagine that you're interested only in George Ralston. I never told him. I don't know whether she did. And if you're wondering whether he took his revenge the idea is ludicrous. Why should he wait until a higher power, or fate or luck, whatever you choose to believe in, is about to rid him of me permanently? Ralston isn't a fool. And if you would like to ask whether I sent the lady on before me, the answer is no. Clarissa Lisle and I had exhausted each other's possibilities on this bank and shoal of time. But I could have killed her. I had the opportunity; I was alone in my room conveniently close all the afternoon. In case you haven't already inquired, it's on the same floor as Clarissa, a mere fifty feet away overlooking the eastern front of the castle. I had access to the means since I had been shown the marble limb. I suppose I could have found the strength. And I think she might have opened her door to me. But I didn't kill her and I don't know who did. You'll have to take my word for it. I can't prove a negative.' 'Tell me what she was like.'

It was the first time Grogan had asked that question. And yet, thought Buckley, it was at the heart of every murder investigation, and, if it were possible to find the answer, most other questions would become superfluous. Whittingham said:

'I was going to say that you've seen her face, but, of course, you haven't. A pity. One needed to know the physical Clarissa to get any clue to what else there might have been to know. She lived intensely in and through her body. The rest is a list of words. She was egocentric, insecure, clever but not intelligent, kind or cruel as the mood took her, restless, unhappy. But she had certain skills which a gentlemanly reticence inhibits me from discussing but which weren't unimportant. She probably gave more joy than she caused misery. Since that can't be said of many of us, it's unbecoming of me to criticize her. I remember that I once sent to her the words of Thomas Malory, Lancelot speaking to Guinevere: "Lady, I take record of God, in thee I have had my earthly joy." I don't take them back, whatever she may have done.'

'Whatever she may have done, sir?'

'A form of words merely, Chief Inspector.'

'So you mourn her?'

'No. But I shan't forget her.'

There was a pause. Then Grogan asked quietly:

'Why are you here, sir?'

'She asked me to come. But there was another reason. One of the Sunday papers commissioned me to do a piece on the island and the theatre. What was wanted was period charm, nostalgia and salacious legend. They should have sent a crime reporter.'

'And that was enough to tempt a reviewer of your eminence?'

'It must have been, mustn't it, since here I am.'

When Grogan asked him, as he had the other suspects, to describe the events of the day, he showed signs of tiredness for the first time. The body sagged in its chair like a puppet jerked from its string.

'There isn't much to tell. We had a late breakfast and then Miss Lisle suggested we see the Church. There's a crypt with some ancient skulls and a secret passage to the sea. We explored both and Gorringe entertained us with old legends about the skulls and a reputed drowning of a wartime internee in the cave at the end of the passage. I was tired and didn't listen very closely. Then back to luncheon at twelve. Miss Lisle went to rest immediately afterwards. I was in my room by quarter past one and stayed there resting and reading until it was time to dress. Miss Lisle had insisted that we change before the play. I met Roma Lisle at the head of the staircase as she came down from her room and we were together when Gorringe appeared with Miss Gray and told us that Clarissa was dead.'

'And during the morning, the visit to the Church and the cave, how did Miss Lisle seem to you?'

'I think I would say, Chief Inspector, that Miss Lisle was her usual self.'

Lastly Grogan spilled out from the folder the sheaves of messages. One of them fluttered to the floor. He bent and picked it up, then handed it to Whittingham'.

'What can you tell us about these, sir?'

'Only that I knew she was getting them. She didn't tell me, but one does tend to pick up bits of theatre gossip. But I don't think it was generally known. And here, again, I seem to be the natural suspect. Whoever sent these knew Miss Lisle and knew his Shakespeare. But I don't think I would have added the coffin and the skull. An unnecessarily crude touch, don't you think?'

'And that is all that you want to tell us, sir?'

'It's all that I can tell you, Chief Inspector.'

CHAPTER THIRTY

It was nearly seven o'clock before they got round to seeing the boy. He had changed into a formal suit and looked, thought Buckley, as if he were attending his stepmother's funeral instead of an interview with the police. He guessed that there was no more than eight years' difference in their ages, but it could have been twenty. Lessing looked as neatly pressed and nervous as a child. But he had himself well under control. Buckley felt that there was something vaguely familiar about his entrance, the care with which he seated himself, the serious expectant gaze which he fixed on Grogan's face. And then he remembered. This was how he had looked and behaved at his final interview to join the police. He had been advised then by his headmaster. 'Wear your best suit, but no fountain pen or fancy handkerchief peeping coyly out of the jacket pocket. Look them straight in the eye, but not so fixedly that you embarrass them. Be slightly more deferential than you feel; they're the ones with the job on offer. If you don't know an answer, say so, don't waffle. And don't worry if you're nervous, they prefer that to over-confidence, but show that you've got the guts to cope with nervousness. Call them "sir" or "madam" and thank them briefly before you leave. And for God's sake, boy, sit up straight.'

And as the interview progressed beyond the first easy questions designed, Buckley could almost believe, to put the candidate at his ease, he sensed something else, that Lessing was beginning to feel as he had done; if you followed the advice, the ordeal wasn't so bad after all. Only his hands betrayed him. They were broad and unpleasantly white with thick stubbed fingers, but narrow – almost girlish – nails cut very short and so pink that they looked painted. He held his hands in his lap and from time to time he would stretch and pull at the fingers as if he were routinely performing some prescribed strengthening exercise.

Sir George Ralston remained standing with his back to them looking out of the window through the partly drawn curtains. Buckley wondered whether the intention was to demonstrate that he wasn't influencing the boy by word or glance. But the pose looked perverse, the more so as there was nothing in that still darkness which he could possibly see. Buckley had never known such silence. It had a positive quality; not the absence of noise but a silence which sharpened perception and gave importance and dignity to every word and action. He wished, not for the first time, that they were at headquarters with the sound of passing feet, of doors closing, of distant voices calling, all the comfortable background noises of ordinary life. Here it wasn't only the suspects who were under judgement.

This time Grogan's doodle looked innocuous, even charming. He seemed to be redesigning his kitchen garden. Neat rows of chubby cabbages, climbing runner beans and fern-topped carrots grew under his hand. He said:

'So after your mother died you went to live with her brother and his family and you were there when Lady Ralston came to visit you in the summer of 1978 and decided to adopt you?'

'There was no formal adoption. My uncle was my guardian and he agreed that Clarissa would be… well, a kind of foster mother, I suppose. She took over the whole responsibility for me.'

'And you welcomed that arrangement?'

'Very much, sir. Life with my uncle and aunt wasn't really congenial to me.'

And that was an odd word for the boy to use, thought Buckley. It made it sound as if they'd taken the Mirror instead of The Times and he hadn't been able to get his after-dinner port.

'And you were happy with Sir George and his wife?' Grogan couldn't resist the small note of sarcasm. He added:

'Life was congenial to you?'

'Very, sir.'

'Your stepmother – is that how you thought of her, as a stepmother?'

The boy blushed and glanced sideways at the silent figure of Sir George. He moistened his lips and said: 'Yes, sir. I suppose so.'

'Your stepmother has been receiving some rather unpleasant communications during the last year or so. What do-you know about that?'

'Nothing, sir. She didn't tell me.' He added, 'We don't… we didn't see a great deal of each other. I'm at school and she was often at the Brighton flat during the holidays.'

Grogan pulled one of the messages from his file and pushed it over the desk.

'That's a sample. Recognize it?'

'No, sir. It's a quotation, isn't it? Is it Shakespeare?'

'You tell me, lad. You're the one at Melhurst. But you've never seen one of these before?' 'No, never.'

'Right then. Suppose you tell us exactly what you did between one o'clock today and two forty-five.'

Lessing looked down at his hands, seemed to become aware of his nervous methodical stretching, and grasped both sides of his chair as if to prevent himself from springing to his feet. But he gave his account lucidly and with growing confidence. He had decided to swim before the play and had gone straight to his room after lunch where he had put on his swimming-trunks under his jeans and shirt. He had taken his jersey and towel and made his way across the lawn to the shore. He had walked on the beach for about an hour because Clarissa had warned him not to swim too soon after his meal. He had then returned to the small cove just beyond the terrace and had entered the water at about two o'clock or shortly after, leaving his clothes, towel and wrist-watch on the shore. He had seen no one either during his walk or his swim, but Sir George had told him that he had watched him coming ashore through his binoculars when he himself was returning to the castle after his bird-watching. Here he again glanced round at his stepfather as if inviting corroboration and again got no response. Grogan said:

'So Sir George Ralston has told us. And what then?'

'Well, nothing really, sir. I was on my way back to the castle when Mr Gorringe saw me and came to meet me. He told me about Clarissa.'

The last few words were almost a whisper. Grogan bent his ruddy head forward and asked softly: 'And what exactly did he tell you?' 'That she was dead, sir. Murdered.' 'And did he explain how?' Again the whisper. 'No, sir.'

'But you asked, presumably? You betrayed some natural curiosity?'

'I asked him what had happened, how she had died. He said that no one could be sure until after the post-mortem.'

'He's right. There's nothing you need to know except the fact that she is dead, and that it must have been homicide. And now, Mr Lessing, what can you tell us about the arm of the dead princess?'

Buckley thought that Sir George gave an exclamation of protest; but he still didn't interrupt. The boy looked from face to face as if the police had gone mad. No one spoke. Then he said:

'You mean, in the Church? We visited the crypt to see the skulls this morning. But Mr Gorringe didn't say anything about a dead princess.'

'It wasn't in the Church.'

'You mean, it's a mummified arm? I don't understand.'

'It's a marble hand, a limb to be accurate. A baby's limb. Someone has taken it from Mr Gorringe's display case, the one outside this door, and we'd rather like to know who and when.'

'I don't think I've seen it, sir. I'm sorry.'

Grogan had completed his kitchen garden and was separating it from the lawn by a trellis and archway. He looked up at Lessing and said:

'My officers and I will be back here tomorrow. We'll probably be around for a day or two. If there's anything that occurs to you, anything that you remember which is the least unusual or likely to help, however small and unimportant it seems, I want you to get in touch. Understand?'

'Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.'

Grogan nodded and the boy got to his feet, glanced for the last time at the still back of Sir George and went out. Buckley almost expected him to turn at the door and ask whether he'd got the job.

Sir George turned at last:

'He's due back at school on Monday morning before midday. Special leave. I take it he can go.' Grogan said:

'It would be helpful to us, sir, if he could stay until the Tuesday morning. It's just a question of convenience. If anything does occur to him or to us it would be helpful to be able to clear it up quickly. But obviously he can go early on Monday if you think it important.'

Sir George hesitated.

'Don't suppose a day will make much odds. Better for him, though, to be away from here, back at work. I'll get in touch with the school tomorrow or Monday. He'll need leave later for the funeral, but I suppose it's too early yet to think about that.'

'I'm afraid so, sir.'

Sir George was almost at the door when Grogan called softly: 'There's one other thing, sir, which I have to ask. Your relationship with your wife. Would you say that yours was a happy marriage?'

The slim upright figure paused for a second, hand on the doorknob. Then Sir George turned to face them. His face was twitching violently, like that of a man afflicted with a nervous spasm. Then he controlled himself.

'I find that question offensive, Chief Inspector.'

Grogan's voice was still gentle, dangerously gentle.

'In a murder investigation, we sometimes have to ask questions which people find offensive.'

'It's meaningless unless you ask both parties. Too late for that now. Not sure that my wife had the capacity for happiness.'

'And you, sir?'

He answered with great simplicity. 'I loved her.'

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

After he had gone, Grogan said with sudden vehemence:

'Let's pack up and get out of this place. It's getting claustrophobic. What time is the launch expected with Roper and Badgett?'

Buckley looked at his watch.

'It should be here within fifteen minutes.'

Detective Constables Roper and Badgett were to be on duty in the business room, but for one night only. Their presence was almost a formality. No one at the castle had asked for police protection, nor did Grogan believe that they were in need of it. He had few enough officers without wasting manpower. The whole of the island including the secret passage to the Devil's Kettle had been searched; if anyone still believed in the theory of the casual intruder it was apparent that he wasn't now on Courcy. Tomorrow the police inquiries on the island would be complete and the investigation moved to an incident room at the Speymouth station. It was likely, thought Buckley, to be a tedious and less than comfortable vigil for Roper and Badgett. Ambrose Gorringe had offered a bedroom and had said that the two officers should ring for Munter if there was anything they needed. But Grogan's instructions had been clear.

'You'll bring your own flasks and sandwiches, lads, and ring for no one. You'll be beholden to Mr Gorringe for nothing but his light and heating and the water that flushes his bog.'

He pulled the bellcord. It seemed to Buckley that Munter took his time in coming. Grogan said:

'Will you tell Mr Gorringe that we're now leaving.'

'Yes, sir: The police launch isn't yet sighted, sir.'

'I'm aware of that. We shall wait for it on the quay.'

When the man had gone, he said irritably:

'What does he think we propose to do? Walk on water?'

Ambrose Gorringe arrived within minutes to see them off his premises with formal courtesy. They might, thought Buckley, have been a couple of dinner guests, if not particularly welcome or agreeable ones. He said nothing about the event that had brought them to Courcy and made no inquiries about the progress of the investigation. Clarissa Lisle's murder might have been an embarrassing mishap in an otherwise not unsuccessful day…

It was good to be in the air again. The night was extraordinarily balmy for mid-September and there still seemed to rise from the stones of the terrace a genial warmth like the last breath of a summer day. Briefcases in hand, they strolled together along the eastern arm of the quay. Turning to retrace their steps, they could see in the distance a stream of light from the dining-room windows and dark figures moving to and fro on the terrace, joining then parting, pausing and then walking on as if taking part in a stately pavane. It looked to Buckley as if they had plates in their hands. Probably making do with the cold left-over party food he thought, and some irrelevant quotation about baked funeral meats came into mind. He didn't blame them for not wanting to sit together round a table, faced with one empty chair.

He and Grogan settled themselves under the canopy of the bandstand to wait for the first lights of the launch. The peace of the night was seductive. Here on the southern shore where the mainland couldn't be seen it was easy to imagine that the island was totally isolated in a waste of sea, that they were waiting and watching for the masts of some overdue relief ship, and that the figures gliding on the terrace were the ghosts of long-dead settlers, that the castle itself was a shell, hall and library and drawing-room open to the sky, the great staircase rising into nothingness, ferns and weeds pushing their way between the broken tiles. He wasn't normally imaginative, but now he deliberately indulged his tiredness, letting his mind elaborate the fantasy while he sat gently massaging his right wrist.

Grogan's voice broke harshly into the reverie. Neither the peace nor the beauty had touched him. His thoughts were still on the case. Buckley told himself that he should have known there would be no respite. He remembered the overheard comment of a detective inspector: 'Red Rufus treats a murder investigation like a love affair. Gets obsessed with his suspects. Moves into their lives. Lives and breathes with the case, edgy and restless and frustrated, until it climaxes at the arrest.' Buckley wondered if that was one of the reasons for his failed marriage. It must be disconcerting to live with a man who, for most of the night as well as the day, simply wasn't there. And when he spoke his voice was as vigorous as if the inquiry had just begun.

'Miss Roma Lisle, cousin of the deceased, aged forty-five, shopkeeper, ex-schoolmistress, unmarried. What struck you most about the lady, Sergeant?'

Buckley dragged his mind back to the interview with Roma Lisle.

'That she was frightened, sir.'

'Frightened, defensive, embarrassed and unconvincing. Consider her story. She admits that the woodcut is hers and says that she brought it to Courcy because she thought that Ambrose Gorringe would be interested in it and would be able to advise her about its age and value. As he doesn't claim to be an authority on early seventeenth-century manuscripts, the hope was optimistic. Still, we needn't read too much into that. She found the thing, she thought it was interesting and she brought it with her. And now for today. She tells us that she left her cousin's bedroom at about five minutes past one, went straight to the library and stayed there until half past two when she went up to her room. It's on the floor immediately above the gallery and she didn't have to pass Miss Lisle's room to get to it. She saw and heard no one. During the hour and twenty minutes when she was in the library she was alone. Miss Gray briefly put her head round the door at about twenty past one but didn't stay. Miss Lisle remained in the library expecting a private business call from her partner which didn't, in fact, come through. She tells us that she also wrote a letter. Asked to produce it as a small indication of verisimilitude – not that it greatly matters -she blushes with embarrassment and says that she decided not to send it after all and tore it up. When we gently point out that there are no fragments in the library waste-paper basket she becomes even redder and confides that she took the scraps with her when she went to her room and flushed them down the WG. All very curious. But consider something even odder. She was one of the last people to see her cousin alive; not the last, but one of the last. And she tells us that she followed Miss Lisle up to her room because she wanted to wish her good luck in the play. All very proper and cousinly. But when we point out that she'd left it rather late to get changed, she tells us that she'd decided to give the performance a miss. Would you care to propound a theory which would explain these intriguing eccentricities of behaviour?'

'She was expecting a telephone call from her lover, sir, not necessarily her partner. When it didn't come, she decided to write to him. Then she thought better of it and tore up the letter. She retrieved the fragments from the waste-paper basket because she didn't want us piecing them together and reading her private correspondence, however innocuous.'

'Ingenious, Sergeant. But you see where it leaves us. At the time when, according to her, she took those scraps upstairs she couldn't have known that the police would be here to poke their inquisitive noses into anyone's private correspondence, not unless she also knew by then that her cousin was dead.'

'And that last visit to Miss Lisle?'

Grogan said:

'My guess is that it was less friendly than she makes out.'

'But why tell us about the letter, sir? She didn't have to. Why not just say that she spent the time in the library, reading?'

'Because she's a woman who normally tells the truth. She made no pretence, for example, of liking her cousin or being particularly grieved by her death. If she is going to lie to the police, she prefers to lie as little as possible. That way she has fewer untruths to remember and is able to convince herself that, essentially, she isn't really lying at all. It's a sound enough principle as far as it goes. But we shouldn't read too much into that torn-up letter. She may merely have wanted to save the servants trouble, or have been afraid that they might have been curious enough to piece it together. And if Miss Roma Lisle's story is less than convincing, she's not the only one. Consider the curious reticence of the lady's maid. It sounds like the chapter heading for one of those snobbish thirties thrillers.'

Buckley thought back over the interview with Rose Tolgarth. Before she had come in, Grogan had said to him:

'You question the lady, Sergeant. She may prefer youth to experience. Give her a treat.'

Surprised, Buckley had asked:

'At the desk, sir?'

'That would seem the obvious place, unless you intend to prowl round her like a predator.'

Grogan himself had greeted her and invited her to sit with more courtesy than he had shown Cordelia Gray or Roma Lisle. If she were surprised to find herself facing the younger of the two officers she hadn't shown it. But then, she hadn't shown anything. She had gazed at him with her remarkable eyes, with their smudgy black irises, as if she were looking into… what, he wondered? Not his soul, since he didn't believe that he had one, but certainly into some part of his mind which wasn't intended to be public property. All his questions had been answered politely but with the minimum of words. She had admitted that she knew about the threatening messages but refused to speculate about who might have sent them. That job, she implied, was the responsibility of the police. It was she who had made and taken up Miss Lisle's tea before she settled for her usual pre-performance rest.

The routine was always the same. Miss Lisle drank Lapsang Souchong tea with no milk or sugar but with two thick slices of lemon put into the teapot before the boiling water was poured in. She had made the tea in the usual way in Mr Munter's pantry and Mrs Chambers and Debbie had been with her at the time. She had taken up the tray immediately and at no time had the teapot been out of her sight. Sir George had been in the bedroom with his wife. She had placed the tea tray on the bedside cabinet and had then gone into the bathroom where there was a certain amount of tidying to be done before Miss Lisle took her bath. She had returned to the bedroom to help her mistress undress and had found Miss Gray there. After Miss Gray had returned to her own room, Sir George had left his wife and she herself had followed almost immediately afterwards. She had spent the afternoon preparing the ladies' dressing-room backstage and helping Mrs Munter with the arrangements for the party. At two forty-five she had become concerned in case Miss Gray had forgotten to call Miss Lisle and had gone herself. She had met Sir George, Mr Gorringe and Miss Gray outside the bedroom and had then learned of Miss Lisle's death.

They had taken her up to the bedroom and asked her to look round carefully but without touching anything, and say whether the room was as she would expect to find it, whether there was anything which struck her as unusual. She had shaken her head. Before leaving she had stood for a moment gazing over the chaise longue, the stripped and empty bed with a look which Buckley couldn't fathom. Sadness? Speculation? Resignation? The right word eluded him. Her eyes were open but he thought he saw her lips moving. For a moment he had the extraordinary idea that she might be praying.

Back in the business room he had asked:

'You were happy working for Miss Lisle? You liked each other?'

And that was as tactful a way as he knew of asking whether she had hated her employer enough to bash in her skull. She had replied quietly:

'We are used to each other. My mother was her nurse. She asked me to look after her.'

'And you can't think of a reason why anyone should want to kill her. All one big happy family, were they?'

The attempt at Grogan-like sarcasm had been unsuccessful. She had met it with a brand of her own.

'There's never a good reason for people to kill each other, even in happy families.'

He had had little more success with Mrs Munter. She, too, had been a polite but unrewarding witness, saying as little as possible, resisting all his blandishments to entice her into volubility or indiscretion. Ambrose Gorringe had concealed his secrets, if any, with a spate of apparently artless conjecture. Miss Tolgarth and Mrs Munter had concealed theirs with a silence and obstinacy which just avoided being overtly uncooperative. Buckley thought that Grogan could hardly have selected two more difficult witnesses for him to practise interrogation on. Perhaps that had been the idea. The impression they apparently wanted to convey was that murder, like most of the world's violence, was a male concern from which, as women, they were only too happy to be excluded. From time to time he had found himself staring at them with what he was uncomfortably aware must have been obvious frustration. But human beings weren't like school geometry problems. If you stared at them long enough, they didn't suddenly make sense. He said:

'Miss Tolgarth admits that she didn't leave Miss Lisle until after Sir George had gone and that accords with his evidence. Miss Gray was in her own room so nobody saw her leave. She could have returned to the bathroom, pretended to busy herself with preparations for the bath, come back into the bedroom when Gray had left, and killed her mistress then.'

'The timing would be very tight. Mrs Munter saw her downstairs in the pantry at one twenty.'

'So she says. I got the feeling, sir, that those two are standing together. I got precious little out of either of them, Rose Tolgarth in particular.'

'Except one highly interesting lie. Unless, of course, the lady is less sharp-eyed than I give her credit for.' 'Sir?'

'In the bedroom, Sergeant. Think. You asked her if everything looked as she would expect to find it. Her answer was a nod. But visualize that dressing-table. What among all that female clutter was missing, something which we would have expected to see, given the things which, in fact, we did see?'

But the launch bringing Roper and Badgett had actually touched the quay before Buckley was able to work out the answer to the conundrum.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

And now, at last, the dreadful day was over. Soon after ten o'clock struck, one by one and with brief 'goodnights', they had crept silently to their beds. The casual night-time commonplaces had become unsayable – 'I'm terribly tired. It's been a long day. Sleep well. See you all in the morning,' – all bore a weight of innuendo, tactlessness or bad taste. Two women police officers had moved Cordelia's things from the De Morgan room, a touch of delicacy which would have amused her had she been capable of being amused. The new bedroom was on the same gallery floor but on the other side of Simon and overlooking the rose garden and the pool. As she turned the key in the lock and breathed the stuffy, scented air Cordelia thought that it might not often be used. It was small, dim and cluttered and looked as if Ambrose had furnished it strictly in period for the edification of his summer visitors. The lightness and delicacy which he had achieved in so much of the castle was absent. Every square inch of the walls was covered with pictures and ornaments and the ornate furniture, papier-maché lined with mahogany, seemed to press in on her. dark and threatening. The room felt musty but when she opened wide the window the sound of the sea burst in, no longer soporific and comforting but a steady menacing roar. She lay wondering whether she could summon up the energy to get out of bed and half close the window. But that was her last conscious thought before weariness took over and she felt herself drifting unresistingly down the long stream of tiredness into sleep.