The Skull Beneath The Skin

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

At nine fifteen Cordelia went into the business room to ring Miss Maudsley, wondering as she lifted the receiver whether the police would be listening in. But monitoring private telephone calls, even from the scene of a murder, counted as phone tapping and for that the consent of the Home Secretary was surely necessary. It was strange how little she.knew about a real police investigation despite Bernie's tutelage. It had already struck her that their legal powers were a great deal less extensive than a reading of detective fiction might suggest. On the other hand, their physical presence was far more frightening and oppressive than she would have believed possible. It was like having mice in the house. They might for a time be both silent and invisible but, once known to be there, it was impossible to ignore their secret and polluting presence. Even here in the business room the force of Inspector Grogan's rebarbative personality still lingered, although all trace of his brief occupation had been cleared away. It seemed to her that the police had left the room tidier than they had found it, and this in itself was sinister. As she dialled the London number it was difficult to believe that the call would go unrecorded.

It was a nuisance that Miss Maudsley in her cheap bed-sitting-room had no private telephone. The single instrument was in the darkest and most inaccessible corner of the hall at Mancroft Mansions and Cordelia knew that she might have to wait for minutes until one of the other residents, driven mad by its insistent ring, came out to silence it, and that she would then be lucky if he understood English and luckier still if he were willing to trudge up four flights to call Miss Maudsley. But this morning her call was answered almost immediately. Miss Maudsley confided that she had bought her usual Sunday paper on the way home from eight o'clock Mass and had been crouching on the bottom step of the stairs wondering whether to ring the castle or to wait for Cordelia's call. She was almost incoherent with anxiety and distress and the brevity of the press report hadn't helped. Cordelia thought how chagrined Clarissa would be to learn that her fame, even after a violent death, didn't justify top billing on a day when a spectacular parliamentary scandal, the death of a pop star from a drug overdose and a particularly brutal terrorist attack in Northern Italy had presented the editor with a surplus of candidates for the front page. Miss Maudsley, her voice breaking, said:

'It says that she was… well… battered to death. I can't believe it. And it's so horrible for you. Her husband, too, of course. That poor woman. But naturally one thinks of the living. I suppose it was some kind of intruder. The paper does say that her jewellery is missing. I do hope that the police won't get any wrong ideas.'

And that, thought Cordelia, was as tactful a way as any of saying that she hoped that Cordelia herself wasn't under suspicion.

Cordelia gave her instructions slowly, and Miss Maudsley made audible attempts to calm herself and listen.

'The police will be sure to check up on me and on the Agency. I don't know the procedure, whether someone will call from the Dorset CID or whether they'll get the Met to do it for them. But don't worry. Just answer their questions.'

'Oh dear, yes I suppose we must. But it's all so dreadful. Am I to show them everything? Suppose they ask to see the accounts? I did balance the petty cash on Friday afternoon, at least it didn't balance exactly I'm afraid. Mr Morgan, a delightful man, came to fix the name-plaque… He said that he'd leave the bill until you got back, but I sent Bevis for some biscuits for him to have with his coffee and he forgot how much they cost and we threw away the packet with the price on it.'

'They're more likely to ask about Sir George Ralston's visit. I don't think the police will be interested in the petty cash. But let them see anything they ask for except, of course, the clients' files. They're confidential. And Miss Maudsley, tell Bevis not to try to be clever.'

Miss Maudsley promised in a voice which had become calmer; she was obviously making efforts to convey her total reliability to deal with whatever crises Monday might bring. Cordelia wondered which would be the more damaging, Bevis's play-acting or Miss Maudsley's passionate protestations that in no possible circumstances could dear Miss Gray be capable of murder. Probably

Bevis would be intimidated by the physical presence of the law from the worst excesses of his histrionic talents unless, by some ill chance, he had happened recently to view one of those television documentaries devoted to exposing the corruption, brutality and racism of the police, in which case anything was possible. But at least she could be certain that, whoever visited Kingly Street, it wouldn't be Adam Dalgliesh. From the rarefied and mysterious heights of hierarchy which he now inhabited any such chore was unthinkable. She wondered whether he would read about the crime, whether he would learn that she was involved.

Nothing could have prepared Cordelia for the singularity of the rest of Sunday morning. As he was helping himself to his breakfast scrambled eggs Ambrose suddenly paused, spoon in hand.

'My God, I've forgotten to cancel Father Hancock! It's too late now. Oldfield will be on his way to fetch him.' He turned to explain:

'He's an elderly Anglican priest who has retired to Speymouth. I usually invite him to take Sunday morning service when I have guests. People nowadays seem to feel the need of these ministrations. Clarissa liked him to come when she was here for a weekend. He amused her.'

'Clarissa!' Ivo gave a hoarse burst of laughter which shuddered his gaunt frame. 'He'll probably arrive at the same time as the police. So we explain to Grogan that we aren't at his disposal for an hour or so because we'll all be at Divine Service. I can't wait to see his face. Admit that you didn't cancel on purpose, Ambrose.'

'No, I assure you. It entirely slipped my mind.' Roma said:

'He probably won't come. He'll have heard of the murder by now – it'll be all over Speymouth – and he'll assume that you don't expect him.'

'Don't you believe it. If we were reduced by mass homicide to two and Oldfield were available to fetch him, he'd come. He's nearly ninety and has his own priorities. Besides, he enjoys his sherry and luncheon. I'd better remind Munter.'

He went out, smiling his secretive complacent smile.

Cordelia said:

'I wonder if I ought to change out of trousers.'

Ivo seemed suddenly to have found an appetite. He spooned out a generous helping of egg.

'Unnecessary, surely? I don't suppose you've brought gloves and a prayerbook. Never mind, even if the props are missing we can still proceed to church in the approved Victorian fashion, I wonder whether the Munters and Oldfield will come to make a showing in the servants' pew. And what on earth will the old man find to preach about?'

Ambrose reappeared.

'Well, that's settled. Munter hadn't forgotten. Will you all be coming or have we any conscientious objectors?' Roma said:

'I disapprove, but I don't mind putting in an appearance if the object is to irritate Grogan. We aren't expected to sing, are we?'

'Of course. There is the Te Deum and the responses and we have one hymn. Would anyone like to choose it?'

No one volunteered.

'Then I suggest "God moves in a mysterious way". We meet the launch at ten forty.'

And so the astonishing morning got under way. Shearwater beat the police launch to the jetty by five minutes and Ambrose received a frail figure in cloak and biretta who alighted with remarkable sprightliness and gazed on them benignly from moist and faded blue eyes. Before Ambrose could make the introductions he turned to him and said:

'I was sorry to hear of your wife's death.'

Ambrose said gravely:

'Yes, it was unexpected. But we weren't married, Father.'

'Were you not? Dear me! Forgive me, I hadn't realized. Drowned, I think they said. These waters can be very treacherous.'

'Not drowned, Father. She suffered a severe concussion.'

'I thought that my housekeeper said drowned. But perhaps I'm thinking of someone else. The war, perhaps. A long time ago, anyway. I'm afraid my memory is not what it was.'

The police launch shuddered to the quay and they watched while Grogan, Buckley and two other plain-clothes officers alighted. Ambrose said formally:

'May I introduce Father Hancock who is here to take Morning Service according to the rites of the Church of England. It usually lasts an hour and a quarter. You and your officers are, of course, very welcome to attend.'

Grogan said curtly:

'Thank you, but I am not a member of your Church and my men make their own arrangements and in their off-duty time. I should be glad if we could again have access to all parts of the castle.'

'Of course. Munter will look after you. And I shall, of course, be available myself after luncheon.'

The Church received them into its archaic, multi-coloured silence. Simon was persuaded to seat himself at the organ and the rest of the party filed decorously into the high pew originally built for Herbert Gorringe. The organ was old, requiring to be pumped, and Oldfield was already there, hand at the ready. With the appearance of a surpliced Father Hancock the service got under way. Ambrose obviously took the view that his guests were dissenters, if not worse, who required a strong lead in the responses, and Ivo retained throughout an attentive gravity and showed a familiarity with the liturgy which suggested that this was his normal Sunday morning activity. Simon managed the organ competently enough, although Oldfield let it run out of wind at the end of the TV Deum and it produced a late, noisy and discordant amen. Roma forgot her resolve to remain silent and sang in a rich contralto only slightly out of tune. Father Hancock used the 1662 Book of Common Prayer without deletions or substitutions and his congregation proclaimed themselves miserable offenders who had followed too much the devices and desires of their own hearts and promised amendment of life in a slightly ragged but resolute chorus. It was only at the end of the petitions when, unexpectedly, he inserted a prayer for the souls of the departed that Cordelia heard a small concerted intake of breath and the air of the Church grew for a moment colder. The sermon lasted fifteen minutes and was a learned dissertation on the Pauline theology of the redemption. As they rose to sing the hymn Ivo whispered to Cordelia:

'That's all one asks of a sermon. No possible relevance to anything but itself.'

Before luncheon, Munter served dry and chilled sherry on the terrace. Father Hancock managed three glasses without apparent effect and talked happily to Sir George about bird-watching and to Ivo about liturgical reform on which Ivo showed himself surprisingly well informed. No one mentioned Clarissa, and it seemed to Cordelia that, for the first time since her murder, her restless, menacing spirit was subdued. For a few precious moments the weight of guilt and misery lifted from her own heart. It was possible to believe, innocently talking in the sun, that life was as well ordered, as certain, as austerely decent and reasonable as the great Anglican compromise in which they had taken part. And when they went in to their roast ribs of beef and rhubarb tart – a conventional and rather heavy Sunday luncheon provided, she suspected, primarily for the benefit of Father Hancock – it was a relief to have him there, to hear the thin but beautiful voice discussing such a harmless interest as the nesting habits of the song thrush and to watch his frank enjoyment of the food and wine. Only Simon, his face flushed, drank as steadily, downing the claret as if it were water, reaching for the decanter with a shaking hand. But Father Hancock seemed as spry as ever after a meal which would have reduced many a younger man to stupor and he took his leave of them with the same serene contentment with which he had greeted them four hours earlier.

As Shearwater drew away, Roma turned to Cordelia and said with gruff embarrassment:

'I'm going for a walk for half an hour. Would you care to come? I'd like to have a word with you.'

'All right. If Grogan wants us he can send for us.'

They walked together, without speaking, up the long greensward beyond the rose garden, then under the shadow of the beeches, crunching their way through the bright drifts of fallen leaves and hearing above the scuffle of their tramping feet the strengthening pulse of the sea. After five minutes they emerged from the trees and found themselves on the edge of the cliff. To their right was a concrete bunker, part of the 1939 defences of the island, its low entrance almost blocked with leaves. They moved round it and settled their backs against its rough-textured wall, looking down through a green and gold pattern of beech leaves to the narrow strip of beach and the glitter of the sea-washed shingle.

Cordelia didn't speak. The walk had been at Roma's request. It was for her to say what was on her mind. But she felt curiously peaceful and at ease with her companion, as if none of their differences could weigh against the fact of their common femininity. She watched as Roma picked up a beech twig and began methodically shredding it of leaves. Without looking at Cordelia, she said:

'You're supposed to be an expert in these things. When do you suppose we can get away? I've got a shop to look after, my partner can't manage indefinitely on his own. The police can't keep us here, surely? The investigation could take months.'

Cordelia said:

'They can't legally hold us at all unless they arrest us. Some of us will have to attend the inquest. But I should think you could leave tomorrow if you wanted to.'

'And what about George? He'll need some help. Is he going to sort out her things, jewellery, clothes, make-up, or does he expect me to?'

'Hadn't you better ask him?'

'We can't even get into her bedroom. The police still have it sealed. And she's brought drawers of stuff with her. She always did, even for a weekend. And then there'll be all the clothes in the Bayswater flat and at Brighton, suits, dresses, her furs. He can hardly dump it all on Oxfam.'

Cordelia said:

'They'd be surprised, certainly. But I expect they'd find a good use for it all. They could sell the clothes in their gift shops.' She would have found this female chat about Clarissa's wardrobe bizarre if she hadn't realized that Roma's concern about her cousin's clothes masked a deeper concern: Clarissa's money. Again there was silence. Then Roma said gruffly:

'Did you know that I'd asked Clarissa for a loan just before she was killed and that she'd turned me down?'

'Yes. I was there when she told Sir George.'

'And you haven't told the police?' 'No.'

'That was decent of you, considering that I haven't been particularly pleasant to you.'

'What has that to do with it? If they want that kind of information they can get it from the person concerned, you.'

'Well, they haven't got it so far. I lied. I'm not proud of it and I'm not even sure why. Panic, I suppose, and a feeling that it would suit them to pin the murder on me rather than on George or Ambrose. One's a baronet and war hero and the other's rich.'

'I don't think they want to pin it on anyone except the guilty person. I don't take to either of them, Grogan or Buckley. But I think they're honest.'

Roma said:

'It's odd. I've never much liked or trusted the police, but I always took it for granted that, faced with a crime as serious as murder, I'd co-operate with them up to the hilt. I want Clarissa's murderer caught, of course I do. So why do I feel so defensive? Why do I act as if Grogan and Buckley are in league against me? And it's humiliating to find oneself lying, lying and terrified, and ashamed.'

'I know. I feel the same.'

'It looks as if George hasn't told them about our quarrel either. Nor has Tolly, apparently. Clarissa sent her out while we were talking, but she must have guessed. What do you think she has in mind, blackmail?'

Cordelia said:

'I'm sure not. But I think she knows. She was in the bathroom while I was there, and she probably overheard. Clarissa was pretty vehement.'

'She was vehement with me, vehement and offensive. If I were capable of killing her, I'd have done it then.'

They were silent for a moment, then she said:

'What I can't get used to is the way we all carefully avoid discussing who it was killed her. We don't even confide what we've told Grogan. Since the murder, we've behaved to each other like strangers, telling nothing, asking nothing. Don't you find it strange?'

'Not really. We're stuck here together. Life will be intolerable if we start hurling accusations or recriminations at each other or divide into cliques.'

'I suppose so. But I don't think I can go on, not knowing, not even talking about it,, pretending to make polite conversation when we're all thinking about the same, thing, carefully avoiding each other's eyes, wondering, locking our doors at night. Did you lock yours?'

'Yes. I wasn't sure why. I don't think for one moment that there's a homicidal maniac on the island. Clarissa was always the intended victim. She wasn't killed by mistake. But I did lock my door.'

'Against whom? Who do you think did it?' Cordelia said:

'One of us who slept in the castle on Friday night.' 'I know that. But which one?' 'I don't know. Do you?'

Roma's twig was a thin denuded wand. She threw it away, found another and began again the work of methodical destruction.

'I should like it to be Ambrose if anyone, but I can't believe it. Wasn't it George Orwell who wrote that murder, the unique crime, should arise only from strong emotions? Ambrose never felt a strong emotion in his life. And he hasn't the courage or the ruthlessness. He isn't capable of that much hatred. He likes to play with the toys of violence; a tag end of executioner's rope, a bloodstained nightdress, a pair of Victorian handcuffs. With Ambrose even the horror comes second-hand, disinfected by time and charm and quaintness. And it can't be Simon. He never even saw the marble limb and, anyway, he'd have confessed by now. He's a weakling like his father. He wouldn't have the psychological strength to stand up to Grogan for five minutes if the going got rough. And Ivo? Well, Ivo's dying. He's nearly served his life sentence. He may feel that he's out of the reach of the law. But where's his motive? I suppose George is the main suspect, but I don't believe that either. He's a professional soldier, a professional killer if you like. But he wouldn't do it in that way, not to a woman. It could be the Munters, singly or together, or even Tolly, but I can't think why. That leaves you and me. And it wasn't me. And, if it's any comfort to you, I don't think it was you either.' Cordelia said:

'Tell me about Clarissa. You spent a lot of your holidays with her as a child, didn't you?'

'Oh God, those awful Augusts! They had a house on the river at Maidenhead and spent most of the summer there. Her mother thought that Clarissa ought to have young company and my parents were glad to have me fed and boarded free. Oddly enough, we got on quite well together then, united I suppose by our fear of her father. When he came down from London she lived in terror.'

'I thought that she adored him, that he was an over-indulgent, devoted papa.'

'Is that what she told you? How typical of Clarissa! She couldn't even be honest about her own childhood. No, he was a brute. I don't mean he physically ill-treated us. In some ways that would have been more endurable than sarcasm, a cold adult anger, contempt. I didn't understand him then, of course. Now I think I do. He didn't really like women. He married to get himself a son – he had the egotism that can't imagine a world in which he hasn't at least a vicarious immortality – and he found himself with a daughter, an invalid wife who'd no intention of breeding again and a job in which divorce wasn't an option. And Clarissa wasn't even pretty when she was a child. And his coolness arid her fear killed any spontaneity, any affection, even any intelligence which she might have shown. No wonder she spent the rest of her life obsessively looking for love. But then don't we all?'

Cordelia said:

'After I was told something about her, something she'd done, I thought that she was a monster. But perhaps no one is, not entirely, not when you know the truth about them-.''

'She was a monster all right. But when I think of Uncle Roderick, I can understand why. Hadn't we better be getting back? Grogan will suspect us of conspiracy. We can probably scramble down to the beach from here and walk back by the sea.'

They trudged back along the edge of the surf. Roma, her hands sunk in her jacket pockets, walked ahead, splashing through the small receding waves, seeming oblivious of the wet trouser bottoms flapping against her ankles, of her sodden shoes. The way back was longer and slower than the walk through the copse, but at last they turned the headland of a small bay and the castle was suddenly before them. They stopped and watched. A young man in bathing-trunks and carrying a rough wooden box was climbing down the fire escape from the window of Cordelia's first bedroom. He climbed carefully, hooking his arms round the rungs, being careful not to touch them with his hands. Then he glanced round, walked to the edge of the rocks and with a sudden violent gesture flung the box out to sea. Then he stood poised for a moment, arms raised, and dived. About thirty yards from the end of the terrace rocked a boat, a different boat from the police launch. A diver, sleek and glittering in his black suit, rested on the gunwale. As soon as the box hit the water he twisted his body and dropped backward out of sight. Roma said:

'So that's what the police are thinking?'

'Yes. That's what they're thinking.'

'They're after the jewel casket. And suppose they do manage to dredge it up?' Cordelia said:

'It will be bad news for someone on this island. I think that they'll find that it still holds Clarissa's jewels.' But what else might it hold? Would the notice of Clarissa's performance in The Deep Blue Sea still be in the secret drawer? The police had taken very little interest in that single square of newsprint, but suddenly it seemed to Cordelia that it must have had some significance. Wasn't there just the possibility that it had a bearing on Clarissa's death? The thought at first seemed absurd, but it persisted. She knew that she wouldn't be satisfied until she had seen a duplicate. The obvious first step was to call at the newspaper office in Speymouth and examine the archives. She knew the year, Jubilee year, 1977. It shouldn't be too difficult. And at least it would give her something positive to do.

She was aware that Roma was standing absolutely still, her eyes fixed on the lone swimmer. Her face was expressionless.

Then she shook herself and said:

'We'd better go in and face another round of what, with Chief Inspector Grogan, passes for the third degree. If he were openly impertinent, or even brutal I’d find it less offensive than his veiled masculine insolence.'

But when they passed through the hall and were drawn by the sound of voices into the library they were told by Ambrose that Grogan and Buckley had left the island. They were said to be meeting Dr Ellis-Jones at the Speymouth mortuary. There would be no more questioning until Monday morning. The rest of the day was their own to get through as best they could.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Buckley thought that Sunday afternoon was a hell of a time for an autopsy. He didn't exactly enjoy them whenever he had to attend, but Sunday, even when he was on duty, had about it a^; lethargic, post-prandial calm which called for a comfortable chair in the Sergeants' Mess and a desultory reading over of reports rather than an hour spent on his feet while Doc Ellis-Jones sliced, sawed, cut, weighed and demonstrated with his gloved and bloody hands. It wasn't that Buckley felt squeamish. He didn't in the least care what indignities were practised on his own body once he was dead and he couldn't see why anyone should be more perturbed by the ritual dismemberment of a corpse than he had been as a lad watching his Uncle Charlie in that exciting shed behind his butcher's shop. Come to think of it, Doc Ellis-Jones and Uncle Charlie shared the same expertise and went about their business in much the same way. This had surprised him when, as a newly appointed constable fresh out of regional training school, he had attended his first post-mortem. He had expected that it would be more scientific, less brutal, and far less messy than it had, in fact, proved to be. It had occurred to him then that the main differences between Doc Ellis-Jones and Uncle Charlie were that Uncle Charlie worried less about infection, used a smaller variety of somewhat cruder instruments and treated his meat with more respect. But that wasn't surprising when you considered what he charged for it.

He was glad to get out at last into the fresh air. It wasn't that the PM room stank. It would have been less objectionable to him if it had. Buckley strongly disliked the smell of disinfectant which overlay rather than masked the smell of putrefaction. The smell was elusive but persistent and tended to linger in his nose.

The mortuary was a modern building on upper ground to the west of the little town, and as they made their way to their Rover they could see the lights coming on like glow-worms along the curving streets and the dark form of Courcy Island lying supine as a half-submerged and sleeping animal, far out to sea. It was odd, thought Buckley, how the island seemed to draw closer or recede depending on the light and the time of day. In the mellow autumnal sunshine it had lain in a blue haze, looking so near that he could imagine it possible to swim to that multi-coloured and tranquil shore. Now it had drawn far into the Channel, remote and sinister, an island of mystery and horror. The castle was on its southern shore and no lights beckoned. He wondered what the small company of suspects was doing at this moment, how they would face the long night ahead. It was his guess that all but one of them would sleep behind locked doors.

Grogan came up to him. Nodding towards the island he said: 'So now we know what one of them knew already, how she died. Stripped of Doc Ellis-Jones's technical chat about the mechanics of force and the local absorption of kinetic energy in injuries to the head, not to mention the interesting and characteristic pattern in which the skull disintegrates under the weight of impact, what have we? Much as we expected. She died from a depressed fracture of the front of the skull made with our old friend, a blunt instrument. She was probably lying on her back at the time, much as Miss Gray found her. The bleeding was steady but almost entirely internal and the effect of the blow was intensified by the fact that the bones of the skull are thinner than normal. Unconsciousness supervened almost immediately and she died within five to fifteen minutes. The subsequent damage was done after death, how long after he can't unfortunately say. So we have a murderer who sits and waits while his victim dies and then… what? Decides to make sure? Decides that he didn't much like the lady and may as well make that fact plain? Decides to cover up how she died by giving her more of the same thing?

You aren't going to tell me that he waited ten minutes or so before deciding to panic?' Buckley said:

'He could have spent the time searching for something and been enraged when he didn't find it. So he took out his frustration on the corpse.'

'But searching for what? We haven't found it either, unless it's still there in the room and we've missed its significance. And there's no sign of a search. If the room was searched it was done with care and by someone who knew what he was about. And if he was looking for something, my guess is that he found it.'

'There's still the lab report to come, sir. And they'll have the viscera within the hour.'

'I doubt whether they'll find anything. Doc Ellis-Jones saw no sign of poison. She may have been drugged – we mustn't theorize too far ahead of the facts – but my guess is that she was awake when she died and that she saw the face of her killer.'

It was extraordinary, thought Buckley, how cold the day became once the sun had gone. It was like moving from summer to winter in a couple of hours. He shivered and held open the car door for his Chief. They moved slowly out of the car park and turned towards the town. At first Grogan spoke only in laconic spurts:

'You've heard from the Coroner's Officer?' 'Yes, sir. The inquest's fixed for two o'clock on Tuesday.' 'And the London end? Burroughs is getting on with those inquiries?'

'He's going up first thing in the morning. And I've told the divers we'll be needing them for the rest of the week.' 'What about the bloody press conference?' 'Tomorrow afternoon, sir. Four thirty.'

Again there was silence. Changing gear to negotiate the steep and twisting hill which ran down to Speymouth, Grogan suddenly said:

'The name Commander Adam Dalgliesh mean anything to you, Sergeant?'

There was no need to ask of what force. Only the Met had Commanders. Buckley said:

'I've heard of him, sir.'

'Who hasn't? The Commissioner's blue-eyed boy, darling of the establishment. When the Met, or the Home Office come to that, want to show that the police know how to hold their forks and what bottle to order with the canard a l’orange and how to talk to a Minister on level terms with his Permanent Secretary, they wheel out Dalgliesh. If he didn't exist, the Force would have to invent him.'

The gibes might be unoriginal but there was nothing second-hand about the dislike. Buckley said:

'It's a bit old-fashioned isn't it, sir, all that stuff?'

'Don't be naive, Sergeant. It's only unfashionable to talk like that any more, but that doesn't mean that they've changed their thinking or their actions. He could have had his own force by now – probably be chairing ACPO – if he hadn't wanted to stick to detection. That and personal conceit. The rest of you can struggle in the muck for the prizes. I'm the cat who walks alone and all places are alike to me. Kipling.'

'Yes, sir.'

Buckley paused and then asked: 'What about the Commander?'

'He knows the girl, Cordelia Gray. They tangled together in a previous case. Cambridge apparently. No details offered and hone asked for. But he's given her and that Agency a clean bill. Like him or not, he's a good copper, one of the best. If he says that Gray isn't a murderess I'm prepared to take that as evidence of a sort. But he didn't say that she's incapable of lying and I wouldn't have believed him if he had.'

He drove on in a moody silence. But his mind must have been mulling over yesterday's interviews. After a space of ten minutes in which neither of them had spoken, he said:

'There's one thing which struck me as intriguing. You probably noticed it yourself. They all described the visit on Saturday morning to the Church and the crypt. They all mentioned that story about the drowned internee. But it was done a little too casually; the mere mention of an unimportant trifle; just a short excursion we happened to fancy before lunch. As soon as I invited them to dwell on the incident they reacted like a bunch of virgins who'd had an interesting experience in the Marabar caves. I suppose the allusion is wasted on you, Sergeant?’ 'Yes, sir.'

'Don't worry. I'm not degenerating into one of those literary cops. I'll leave that to Dalgliesh. We did A Passage to India as a set book when I was at school. I used to think it. overrated. But no knowledge is wasted in police work as they used to tell me at training school, not even E. M. Forster apparently. Something happened in the Devil's Kettle which none of them is prepared to talk about and I'd like to know what.'

'Miss Gray found one of the messages.'

'So she says. But I wasn't thinking of that. It's probably a long shot, but we'd better find out more about that 1940 drowning. I suppose Southern Command would be the starting point.'

Buckley's thoughts went back to that white, scientifically butchered body, to a nakedness which had been totally unerotic. Arid more than that. For a moment watching those gloved and probing fingers he had felt that no woman's body would ever excite him again. He said:

'There was no rape and no recent intercourse.'

'That hardly surprised us. Her husband hadn't the inclination and Ivo Whittingham hadn't the strength. And her murderer had other things on his mind. We'll call it a day, Sergeant. The Chief Constable wants a word with me first thing tomorrow. No doubt that means that Sir Charles Cottringham has been having

a word or two with him. That man's a nuisance. I wish he'd stick to amateur theatricals and leave real-life drama to the experts.

And then we'll get back to Courcy Island and see if a night's sleep has refreshed their memories.'

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

At last the interminable hours dragged to dinner-time. Cordelia came in from a last and solitary walk with barely time to shower and change, and by the time she went down, Ambrose, Sir George and Ivo were already in the dining-room. They were all seated before Simon appeared. He was wearing a dark suit. He looked at the others, flushed and said, 'I'm sorry. I didn't realize that we were going to change. I won't be long.'

He turned to the door. Ambrose said with a touch of impatience, 'What does it matter? You can dine in your swimming-trunks if it makes you feel more comfortable. No one here cares what you wear.'

Cordelia thought that it wasn't the happiest way of putting it. The unspoken words hung on the air. Clarissa would have cared; but Clarissa wasn't there. Simon's eyes slewed to the empty chair at the top of the table. Then he sidled to a chair beside Cordelia.

Ivo said:

'Where's Roma?'

'She asked for soup and chicken sandwiches in her room. She says she has a headache.'

It seemed to Cordelia that everyone was simultaneously doubting the reality of the headache while mentally congratulating Roma on having hit on so simple an expedient for avoiding this their first formal dinner together since Clarissa's death. The table had been rearranged, perhaps in an attempt to minimize the trauma of that empty chair. The two end places hadn't been laid and Cordelia and Simon sat facing Ambrose, Ivo and Sir George, almost, it seemed, eyeball to eyeball, while an expanse of mahogany stretched gleaming on either side: Cordelia thought that the arrangement made them look like a couple of viva-voce candidates facing a not particularly intimidating panel of examiners, an impression which was strengthened by Simon's suit in which, paradoxically, he looked less cool and more formally overdressed than did the other three in their frills and dinner-jackets.

Neither Munter nor his wife were present. Bowls of vichyssoise were already set at each place and the second course was under covers on the sideboard hotplates. There was a faint smell of fish, an unlikely choice for a Sunday. It was obviously to be a convalescent's dinner, blandly inoffensive, unexciting to the palate or the digestion. It was, thought Cordelia, a nice point of culinary etiquette, the choice of menu for a house party of murder suspects dining together the day after the crime.

Ivo's thoughts must have been running with hers for he said:

'I wonder what Mrs Beeton would reject as the most inappropriate meal for this kind of occasion. My choice would be bortsch followed by steak tartare. I can't decide on the pudding: Nothing too crude, but it needs to be richly indigestible.'

Cordelia said in a low voice:

'Don't you care at all?'

He paused before replying as if her question merited careful thought:

'I don't like to think that she suffered or was in terror even for a moment. But, if you mean do I care that she's no longer alive, then no, I don't really care.'

Ambrose had finished pouring the Graves. He said: 'We'll have to serve ourselves. I told Mrs Munter to take the evening off and get some rest and Munter hasn't shown himself since luncheon. If the police want to interview him again tomorrow they'll be unlucky. It happens about every four months, and invariably if I've had a house party. I'm not sure whether it's a reaction from the excitement, or just his way of discouraging me from too much entertaining. As he's usually considerate enough to wait until my guests have left I can't really complain. He has compensating qualities.'

Sir George said:

'Drunk is he? I thought he might take to the bottle.'

'I fear so. It usually lasts three days. I did wonder whether the violent death of one of my guests would break the pattern, but apparently not. I suppose it's his release from some intolerable internal boredom. The island isn't really congenial to him. He has an almost pathological dislike of water. He can't even swim.'

Ambrose, Ivo and Cordelia had moved to the sideboard. Ambrose lifted a silver lid to reveal thin fillets of sole in a creamy sauce. Ivo asked:

'Why then does he stay?'

'I've never asked him for fear that the same question might occur to him. Money, I suppose. And he likes solitude even if he would prefer it not to be guaranteed by two miles of sea. He has only me to please. An easy job on the whole.'

'And easier now that Clarissa's dead. I take it you won't be going ahead with the drama festival?'

'Not even, my dear Ivo, as a memorial to her.'

They then seemed to realize that the exchange, even though Sir George was seated too far away to overhear, was in poor taste. Both of them glanced at Cordelia. She felt a little angry with Ambrose. Helping herself to mange-tout peas she said on impulse:

'I was wondering whether he might have found a way to augment his wages, perhaps a little smuggling on the side. The Devil's Kettle would be a useful unloading point. I noticed that he keeps the trapdoor bolt well oiled and he'd hardly need to do that if you don't show the place to summer visitors. And on Friday night I saw a light flashing at sea. I thought that it might be acknowledging a signal.'

Ambrose laughed as he carried back his plate, but when he spoke the thin note of spite was unmistakable. 'Clever Cordelia! You're wasted as an amateur. Grogan would be glad to enrol you in the ranks of official snoopers. Munter may have his private arrangements but he doesn't confide in me and I certainly have no intention of inquiring. Courcy is traditionally a smuggler's haven and most sailors in these parts do a little amateur smuggling. It wouldn't amount to much, a few casks of brandy, an occasional bottle of scent. Nothing as spectacularly naughty as drugs if that's what you have in mind. Most people like a little tax-free income and a touch of risk adds to the fun. But I don't advise you to confide your suspicions to Grogan. Let him get on with the investigation he has in hand.'

Ivo said:

'What about the lights Cordelia saw?'

'Warning off his pals I expect. He'd hardly want the stuff landed with the island swarming with police.' Ivo said evenly:

'Except that Cordelia saw the signal on Friday. How could he know that the police would be here next day?' Ambrose shrugged, unworried.

'Then it couldn't have been the police he feared. Perhaps he knew or guessed that we were being favoured with the company of a private eye. Don't ask me how he knew. Clarissa didn't confide in me and I shouldn't have told Munter even if she had. But it's my experience that little goes on under any roof that a good servant doesn't learn first.'

They rejoined Sir George. He had already helped himself to sole and was eating with a stolid determination but with no evident enjoyment. Cordelia pondered on Munter. She thought it unlikely that he had guessed her secret or that he would have altered his plans if he had. It was more possible that with the castle full of guests he had felt the time unpropitious for the reception of his loot; too many people about, too much extra work, the possibility that he would find it difficult to slip away unnoticed. Perhaps he hadn't been able to get a message to his confederates or the message had gone astray. Or had there been an unexpected arrival on the island, someone he feared particularly, or someone who might have known of the Devil's Kettle, might even have visited it? There was only one person who fitted that bill: Sir George.

The meal seemed endless. Cordelia sensed that they all wished it over but that no one wanted to appear to hurry or to be the first to leave. Perhaps that was why they appeared to be eating with deliberate slowness. She wondered whether it was the absence of staff that made the occasion so portentous; they might be the remnants of some deserted and soon to be beleaguered garrison stoically eating their last meal with traditional ceremony, ears tuned for the first distant shouts of the barbarians. They ate and drank but were silent. The six candles in their branched entwined stems seemed to burn less brightly than on their first evening so that their features, half shadowed, were sharpened into caricatures of their daytime selves. Pale, etiolated hands reached out to the fruit bowl, to furred and flushed peaches, the curved shininess of bananas, apples burnished so that they looked as artificial as Ambrose's candle-lit skin.

The french windows had been shut against the chill of the autumn night and a thin wood fire crackled in the immense grate. But surely those fitfully leaping flames couldn't account for the oppressive heat of the room? It seemed to Cordelia that it was getting hotter by the minute, that the heat of the day had been trapped and thickened, making it difficult to breathe, intensifying the smell of the food so that she felt faintly nauseous. And in her imagination the room itself changed; the Orpens splurged and spread into amorphous colours so that the walls appeared to be hung with crude tapestries and the elegantly stuccoed roof raised smoked hammer beams to a black infinity, open to an everlastingly starless sky. She shivered despite the heat and reached for her wine glass as if the physical feel of cool glass could strengthen her hold on reality. Perhaps only now were the full horror of Clarissa's death, the strain of the police interrogation taking their physical toll.

One candle wavered as if blown by an invisible breath, flickered, and went out. Simon gave a gasp, then a long terrified moan. Hands, half-lifted to mouths, became motionless. They turned in a single movement and stared at the window. Silhouetted against the moonlight reared an immense form, its black arms flailing, hurling itself against the window. Its anger came to them faintly, something between a wail and a bellow. As they gazed in fascinated horror it suddenly ceased its frantic beating and was for a moment still, quietly looking in at their faces. The gaping mouth, raw as a wound, seemed to suck at the window. Two gigantic palms, fingers splayed, imprinted themselves on the glass. The pressed, distorted features dissolved against the window into a mess of slowly draining flesh. Then the creature gathered its strength and heaved. The doors gave, and Munter, wild-eyed, almost fell into the room. The night air rushed cool and sweet over their faces and the distant sighing of the waves became a surging tide of sound as if the swaying figure had been borne in on them by the force of a violent storm, bringing the sea with him.

No one spoke. Ambrose got to his feet and moved forward. Munter brushed him aside and shambled up to Sir George until their faces almost touched. Sir George stayed in his seat. Not a muscle moved. Then Munter spoke, throwing back his head and almost howling the words:

'Murderer! Murderer! Murderer!'

Cordelia wondered when Sir George would move, whether he would wait until Munter's fingers were actually at his throat. But Ambrose had moved behind and had seized the shuddering arms. At first the contact seemed to calm Munter. Then he gave a violent wrench. Ambrose said breathlessly:

'Could one of you help?'

Ivo had begun peeling a peach. He seemed totally unconcerned. He said:

'I'd be no use in this particular emergency, I'm afraid.'

Simon got up and grasped the man's other arm. At his touch Munter's belligerency left him. His knees buckled and Ambrose and Simon moved closer, supporting his sagging weight between them. He tried to focus his eyes on the boy, then slurred out a few words, guttural, unintelligible, sounding hardly English. But his final words were clear enough.

'Poor sod. God, but she was a bitch that one.'

No one else spoke. Together Ambrose and Simon urged him to the door. He gave no further trouble but went as obediently as a disciplined child.

After they had left, the two men and Cordelia sat in silence for a minute. Then Sir George got up and closed the french windows. The noise of the sea became muted and the wildly flickering candles steadied and burned with a clear flame. Returning to the table he selected an apple and said:

'Extraordinary fellow! I was at Sandhurst with a chap who drank like that. Sober for months at a time, then paralytic for a week. Torpedoed in the Med in the winter of '42. Foul weather. Picked up from a raft three days later. Only one of the party to survive. He said that it was because he was pickled in whisky. D'you suppose Gorringe lets Munter have the key to his cellar?'

'I shouldn't think so.' Ivo sounded amused.

Sir George said, 'Extraordinary arrangement, a butler who can't be trusted with the keys. Still, I suppose he has other uses. Devoted to Gorringe obviously.'

Ivo asked:

'What happened to him; your friend I mean?'

'Fell in his own swimming pool and drowned. The shallow end. Drunk at the time, of course.'

It seemed a long time before Ambrose and Simon reappeared. Cordelia was struck with the boy's pallor. Surely coping with a drunken man couldn't have been so horrifying an experience. Ambrose said:

'We've put him to bed. Let's hope he stays there. I must apologize for the performance. I've never known Munter to behave before in such a spectacular way. Will someone please pass the fruit bowl?'

After dinner they gathered in the drawing-room. Mrs Munter had not appeared and they poured their own coffee from the glass percolator on the sideboard. Ambrose opened the french windows and one by one, as if drawn by the sea, they walked out on the terrace. The moon was full, silvering a wide swathe to the horizon and a few high stars pin-pricked the blue-black of the night sky. The tide was running strongly. They could hear it slapping against the stones of the quay and the distant whisper of the spent waves hissing on the shingle beach. The only other sound was the muted footfalls of their walking feet. Here in this peace, thought Cordelia, it would be easy to believe that nothing mattered, not death, nor life, nor human violence, nor any pain. The mental picture of that splodge of battered flesh and congealed blood which had been Clarissa's face, scored as she thought forever on her mind, became unreal, something she had imagined in a different dimension of time. The disorientation was so strong that she had to fight against it, to tell herself why she was here and what it was she had to do. She came out of her trance to hear Ambrose's voice.

He was speaking to Simon. 'You may as well play if you want to. I don't suppose a half hour of music would offend anyone's susceptibilities. There must be something appropriate between a music-hall medley and the "Dead March" from Saul'

Without replying, Simon went over to the piano. Cordelia followed him into the drawing-room and watched while he sat, head bowed, silently contemplating the keys. Then, suddenly hunching his shoulders, he brought down his hands and began playing with quiet intensity and she recognized the slow movement of Beethoven's Emperor Concerto. Ambrose called from the terrace:

'Trite but appropriate.'

He played well. The notes sang into the silent air. Cordelia thought it interesting that he should play so much better with Clarissa dead than he had when she was alive. When he had finished the movement she asked: 'What's going to happen, about your music I mean?'

'Sir George has told me not to worry, that I can stay on at Melhurst for a final year and then go to the Royal College or the Academy if I can get in.'

'When did he tell you this?'

'When he came to my room after Clarissa was found.'

That was a remarkably quick decision, thought Cordelia, given the circumstances. She would have expected Sir George to have had other things on his mind just then than Simon's career. The boy must have guessed her thoughts.

He looked up and said quickly:

'I asked him what would happen to me now and he said that I wasn't to worry, that nothing would change, that I could go back to school and then on to the Royal College. I was frightened and shocked and I think he was trying to reassure me.'

But not so shocked that he hadn't thought first of himself. She told herself that the criticism was unworthy and tried to put it out of her mind. It had, after all, been a natural childish reaction to tragedy. What will happen to me? How will this affect my life? Wasn't that what everyone wanted to know? He had at least been honest in asking it aloud. She said:

'I'm glad, if that's what you want.'

'I want it. I don't think she did. I'm not sure I ought to do something she wouldn't have approved of.'

'You can't live your life on that basis. You have to make your own decisions. She couldn't make them for you even when she was alive. It's silly to expect her to make them now that she's dead.'

'But it's her money.'.

'I suppose it will be Sir George's money now. If it doesn't worry him I don't see why it need worry you.'

Watching the avid eyes desperately gazing into hers Cordelia felt that she was failing him, that he was looking to her for sympathy, for some reassurance that he could take what he wanted from life and take it without guilt. But wasn't that what everyone craved? Part of her wanted to respond to his need; but part of her was tempted to say: You've taken so much. Why jib at taking this? She said:

'I suppose if you want to salve your conscience about the money more than you want to be a professional pianist, then you'd better give up now.'

His voice was suddenly humble.

'I'm not all that good, you know. She knew that. She wasn't a musician, but she knew. Clarissa could smell failure.'

'Oh well, that's a different issue, whether you're good enough or not. I think you play very well, but I can't really judge. I don't suppose that Clarissa could either. But the people at the colleges of music can. If they think you're worth accepting, then they must think you have at least a chance of making a career in music. After all, they know what the competition's like.'

He looked quickly round the room and then said, his voice low:

'Do you mind if I talk to you? There are three things I must ask you.'

'We are talking.'

'But not here. Somewhere private.'

'This is private. The others don't seem likely to come in. Is it going to take long?'

'I want you to tell me what happened to her, how she looked when you found her. I didn't see her, and I keep lying awake and imagining. If I knew it wouldn't be so awful. Nothing is as awful as the things I imagine.'

'Didn't the police tell you? Or Sir George?'

'No one told me. I did ask Ambrose but he wouldn't say.'

And the police would, of course, have had their own reasons for keeping silent about the details of the murder. But they had interviewed him by now. She didn't see that it mattered any more whether he knew or not. And she could understand the horror of those nightly imaginings. But there was no way in which she could make the brutal truth sound gentle. She said:

'Her face was battered in.'

He was silent. He didn't ask how or with what. She said: 'She was lying quite peacefully on the bed, almost as if she were asleep. I'm sure she didn't suffer. If it were done by someone she knew, someone she trusted, she probably didn't even have time to feel afraid.'

'Could you recognize her face at all?'

'No.'

'The police asked me if I'd taken anything from a display cabinet, a marble hand. Does that mean they think it was the weapon?'

'Yes.'

It was too late now to wish that she'd kept quiet. She said: 'It was found by the bed. It was… it looked as if it had been used…'

He whispered, 'Thank you,' but so quietly that she had difficulty in hearing him. After a moment she said: 'You said there were three things.'

He looked up eagerly as if glad that his mood had been broken. 'Yes, it's Tolly. On Friday when I went swimming while the rest of you toured the castle she waited for me on the shore. She wanted to persuade me to leave Clarissa and live with her. She said that I could go straight away and that she had r room in her flat I could have until I'd found myself a job. She said that Clarissa might die.'

'Did she say how or why?'

'No. Only that Clarissa thought she was going to die and that people who thought that often did die.' He looked straight at her. 'And next day, Clarissa did die. And I don't know whether I ought to tell the police what happened, about waiting for me, what she said.'

'If Tolly were actually planning to murder Clarissa she'd hardly warn you in advance. She was probably trying to tell you that, you couldn't rely on Clarissa, that she might change her mind about you, that she might not always be there.'

'I think she did know. I think she guessed. Ought I to tell the Chief Inspector? I mean, it is evidence isn't it? Suppose he found out that I'd been keeping something back?'

'Have you told anyone?'

'No. Only you.'

'You must do what you think is right.'

'But I don't know what's right! What would you do if you were in my place?'

'I wouldn't tell. But then I have a reason. If you feel that it's right to tell, then tell. If it's any comfort to you, I don't think the police will arrest Tolly on that evidence alone and they haven't any other, at least as far as I know.'

'But she'd know that I must have told them! What would she think of me? I don't think I could face her after that.'

'You might not have to. I don't suppose she'll stay on now that Clarissa's dead.'

'So you would tell if you were me?'

Cordelia's patience snapped. It had been a long day ending in the trauma of Munter's dramatic appearance and she was weary in spirit as well as body. And it was difficult to sympathize with Simon's obsessive self-concern.

'I've told you. I wouldn't tell. But I'm not you. It's your responsibility and you can't force it on anyone else. Surely there's something you're capable of deciding for yourself.'

She regretted the unkindness almost as soon as the words were out of her mouth. She turned her eyes from his scarlet face and stricken, dog-like eyes and said:

'I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. I suppose we're all on edge. Wasn't there a third thing you wanted to ask?'

He whispered, his mouth trembling:

'No. There's nothing else. Thank you.' He got up and closed the piano. He added quietly and with some attempt at dignity:

'If anyone asks about me, I've gone to bed.'

Unexpectedly, Cordelia found that she, too, was close to tears. Torn between irritation and pity and despising her own weakness she decided to follow Simon's example. The day had gone on long enough. She went out on the terrace to say goodnight. The three black-clad figures were standing apart, silhouetted against the iridescence of the sea, motionless as bronze statues. At her approach they simultaneously turned and she could feel the concentrated gaze of three pairs of eyes. No one moved or spoke. The moment of moonlit silence seemed to her protracted, almost ominous, and as she said her goodnights the thought that for the past twenty-four hours she had tried to suppress surfaced in all its stark and frightening logic. 'We are here together, ten of us on this small and lonely island. And one of us is a murderer.'

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Cordelia fell asleep almost as soon as she had closed her book and put out the bedside light. But her awakening was as sudden. She lay for a moment confused and then put out her hand and found the switch. Her wrist-watch, curled on the bedside table, showed her that it was just after three thirty, far too early, surely, for her to have woken naturally. She thought that her sleep had been pierced by some sound, perhaps the shriek of a night bird. The moonlight streamed through the half-drawn curtains cutting a swathe of light over the ceiling and walls. The silence was absolute except for the pulse of the plangent sea, louder now than in the stir of the daylight hours. Her mind, still drugged with sleep, took hold of the tag end of a dream. She had been back in Kingly Street and Miss Maudsley had been showing her with pride a newly rescued kitten. As is the way of dreams, she found it unsurprising that the kitten should be sleeping in a carved cradle with a red canopy and side curtains, a miniature of Clarissa's bed, or that, when she peered into the cot and pulled aside the shawl she should see, not a kitten but a baby and should know that this was Miss Maudsley's illegitimate child and that she must be very tactful and not betray that she knew. She smiled at the memory, put out the light and tried to relax into sleep.

But this time it was elusive. Once woken, she was restless. Her mind busied itself again with the mystery and horror of Clarissa's death. Image succeeded image, unsought but insistent, disconnected in time but horribly clear; Clarissa's satin-clad body gleaming pale under the crimson canopy; Clarissa gazing down into the swirl of water at the Devil's Kettle; Clarissa's slim figure passing to and fro on the terrace, pale as a ghost; Clarissa standing on the pier and stretching her arms bat-winged in welcome; Clarissa removing her make-up, turning on Cordelia one naked and diminished eye in a freakish, strange discordant gaze which seemed now to hold a look of sad reproach.

Her mind held that last picture as if unwilling to let it fade. Something about it was significant, something that she ought to have known or remembered. And then the realization came. She saw again the dressing-table, the balls of cotton wool smeared with make-up, the smaller pads shifting across the mahogany, blackened with mascara. Clarissa had used a special lotion to cleanse her eyes. But those pads hadn't been on the dressing-table when her body was discovered. Perhaps she hadn't troubled to remove her eye make-up. Was that something which the forensic pathologist would be able to detect even beneath that shattered and swollen flesh? But why should she take off her powder and foundation and leave her eyes under a weight of shadow and mascara, particularly as she proposed to rest them under the moistened pads. But wasn't there another possibility, that she had kept on all her make-up because she was expecting a visitor and that it had been the visitor who had wiped her face clean before smashing it to pulp? And that implied a man. A man was surely the most likely secret visitor. Clarissa was too obsessed with her appearance to meet even a woman with a naked face. But wouldn't a woman be more likely to realize that she must use the special pads to remove the eye make-up? Tolly would have known it certainly. But Roma? Roma's eyes were devoid of mascara and in the urgency and terror of the moment she would be unlikely to make a close inventory of the bottles on the dressing-table. A man was still the most likely to make such a mistake, except perhaps Ivo with his knowledge of theatrical make-up. But the strangest part of it all was surely Tolly's silence. The police must have questioned her about the make-up, must have asked her if everything on the dressing-table looked normal. And that meant that Tolly had held her tongue. Why and for whom?

It was impossible now to will herself to sleep. But she must have dozed at last if only fitfully for it was nearly four when she next awoke. She was too hot. The bedclothes lay heavily on her like a weight of failure and she knew that there would be no more sleep that night. The sea was louder than ever, the air itself seeming to throb. She had a vision of the tide rising inexorably over the terrace, sweeping into the dining-room, floating the heavy table and the carved chairs, rising to cover the Orpens and the stuccoed ceiling, creeping up the stairs until the whole island was covered except for the slender tower rising like a lighthouse above the waves. She lay rigidly, longing for the first flush of day.

It would be Monday, a working day in Speymouth. She would be able to get away from the island, if only for a few hours, visiting the local newspaper office, trying to trace the cutting about Clarissa's Jubilee performance. She had to do something positive however unlikely it was to prove successful and significant. It would be good to feel free, free of Ambrose's ironic, half-secret smile, Simon's misery, Ivo's gaunt fortitude; free most of all from the eyes of the police. She had no doubt that they would be back. But, short of arresting her, there was nothing they could do to prevent her spending a day on shore.

Now it seemed that the morning would never come. She gave up the attempt at sleeping and got out of bed. Pulling on her jeans and Guernsey she went to the window and drew back the curtains. Below her lay the rose garden, the last overblown heads drooping on their spiky branches, bleached pale by the moon. The water in the pond looked as solid as beaten silver and she could see clearly the smudge of lily leaves, the gleam of their blossoms. But there was something else on the surface, something black and hairy, an immense spider crawling half submerged, spreading and waving its innumerable hairy legs under the shimmering water. She gazed in fascinated disbelief, And then she knew what it was and her blood ran cold.

She wasn't aware of her flight down to the door which led from the passage to the garden. She must have banged on bedroom doors as she ran, indiscriminately, aware only that she might need help, not waiting for a response. But others must have been sleeping lightly. By the time she had reached the door into the garden and was straining upwards to shoot back the top bolt, she was aware of muffled footsteps padding down the passageway, a confused murmur of voices. And then she was standing at the edge of the pool with Simon, Sir George and Roma beside her and viewed clearly for the first time what it was she knew that she had seen: Munter's wig.

It was Simon who threw off his dressing-gown and waded into the pool. The water came up to his thrashing arms. He gulped then dived. The rest of them watched and waited. The water had scarcely steadied after the flurry of his disappearance when his head shot up, sleek as a seal's. He called:

'He's here. He's caught on some wire-netting where the lilies are rooted. Don't come in. I think I can free him.' He disappeared again. Almost at once they saw two black shapes surfacing. Munter's bald head, face upwards, looked as swollen as if it had been in the water for weeks. Simon pushed the body towards the side of the pool and Cordelia and Roma bent and tugged at the sodden sleeves. Cordelia knew that it would be easier to take his hands but the bloated fingers, yellow as udders, repelled her. She bent over his face and shifted her grasp to his shoulders. The eyes were open and glazed, the skin as smooth as latex. It was like pulling a dummy from the water, some discarded manikin with a stuffed sawdust body, waterlogged and inert in its ridiculous formal coat. The clown's mask with its sagging jaw seemed to be gazing into hers with a look of piteous inquiry. She could imagine that she smelt his breath, stinking with drink. She was suddenly ashamed of the repugnance which had rejected the sad remnant of his humanity, and in a spasm of pity she grasped his left hand. It felt like a taut bladder, fleshless, and cold. And it was in that moment of touch that she knew he was dead.

They tugged him on to the grass. Simon pulled himself out of the water. He folded his dressing-gown under Munter's head, forced back his neck and felt in the gaping mouth for dentures. There were none. Then he fastened his mouth over the thick lips and began the kiss of life. They watched silently. No one spoke even when Ambrose and Ivo came up quietly and stood among them. There was no sound but the squelch of sodden clothes as Simon bent to his task and the regular gasp of his intaken breath. Cordelia glanced at Sir George, wondering a little at his silence. He was gazing down at the bloated inverted face, at the half-shut and unseeing eyes with a look of great intensity, almost of incredulous recognition. And in that moment, Cordelia's heart jolted. Her eyes met his and she thought they flashed a warning. Neither spoke but she wondered whether he had shared her revelation. There came into her mind an old incongruous picture; the music room at the Convent, Sister Hildegarde stretching wide her mouth and eyes in an anticipatory mime, raising the white baton. 'And now my children, the Schumann. Happy, happy! Mouths wide. Ein munteres Lied.'

She dragged her mind back to the present. There was no time to think about her discovery or to explore its implications. She forced herself to look again at the sodden lump of flesh on which Simon was so desperately working. He was close to exhaustion when Ambrose bent and felt for the pulse at Munter's wrist. He said:

'It's no good. He's dead. And he's icy cold. He's probably been in the water for hours.'

Simon didn't reply. He went on mechanically pumping breath into the inert body as if performing some indecent and esoteric rite. Roma said:

'Ought we to give up? I thought you were supposed to go on for hours.'

'Not when the pulse has gone and the body's cold.'

But Simon took no notice. The rhythm of his harsh, indrawn breath and the antics of his crouched body seemed to have become more frantic. It was then that they heard Mrs Munter's voice, low but harsh:

'Leave him be. He's dead. Can't you see that he's dead?'

Simon heard her. He stood up and began to shiver violently. Cordelia took his dressing-gown from under Munter's head and wrapped it round his shoulders. Ambrose turned to Mrs Munter.

'I'm so very sorry. When did it happen, do you know?'

'How can I tell?' She paused, then added, 'sir'. 'I don't sleep with him when he's drunk.'

'But you must have heard him go out. He can't have walked steadily or quietly.'

'He left his room just before three thirty.'

Ambrose said:

'I wish you had let me know.'

Cordelia thought: He sounds as peevish as if she's proposing to take a week's holiday without consulting him.

'I thought you paid us to protect you from trouble and inconvenience. He'd made enough for one night.'

There seemed to be nothing to say. Then Sir George came forward and beckoned to Simon.

'Better get him indoors.'

There was a new note in Mrs Munter's voice. She said quickly: 'Don't bring him into the servants' flat, sir.' Ambrose said soothingly:

'Of course not, if that's how you feel.' 'That's how I feel.'

She turned and walked away. The rest of the party looked after her.

Then Cordelia ran and caught her up.

'Please let me come with you. I don't think you should be alone.'

She was surprised that the eyes lifted to hers could hold so much dislike.

'I want to be alone. There's nothing the likes of you can do. Don't worry, I'm not going to kill myself.'

She nodded towards Ambrose. 'You can tell him that.'

Cordelia returned to the group. She said:

'She doesn't want anyone with her. She says to tell you that she'll be all right.'

No one answered. They were still standing in. a circle looking down on the body. Dressing-gowned as they were, their feet muffled by slippers, they loomed over the corpse like a group of oddly clad mourners: Sir George in shabby checked wool, Ivo's dark-green silk through which his shoulders stuck like wire hangers, Ambrose's sombre blue, faced with satin, Roma's padded and flowered nylon, Simon's brown bathrobe. Watching the circle of bent heads Cordelia half expected them to rise in concert and wail a threnody in the thin air. Then Sir George roused himself and turned to Simon:

'Shall we get on with it?'

Ivo had wandered a little way along the edge of the pool and was contemplating the remnants of the water lilies as if they were some rare marine vegetation in which he had a scientific interest. He looked up and said:

'But ought you to move him? Isn't it usual not to disturb the body until the police arrive?'

Roma cried:

'But that's only in a case of murder! This is an accident. He was drunk, he staggered and he fell in. Ambrose told us that Munter couldn't swim.'

'Did I? I can't remember. But it's perfectly true. He couldn't swim.'

Ivo said:

'You told us so at dinner. But Roma wasn't there.' Roma cried:

'Someone told me, Mrs Munter perhaps. What does it matter? He was drunk, he fell in and he drowned. It's perfectly obvious what happened.'

Ivo resumed his contemplation of the water lilies. 'I don't think anything is ever perfectly obvious to the police. But I dare say you're right. There's enough mystery without making more. Are there any marks of violence on the body?'

Cordelia said:

'Not that I can see.'

Roma said obstinately:

'We can't leave him here. I think we should take him indoors.' She looked at Cordelia as if inviting her support. Cordelia said: 'I don't think it matters if we move him. It isn't as if we found him like this.'

They all looked at Ambrose as if waiting for instructions. He said:

'Before we move him, please come with me all of you. There's something we have to decide.'

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

They followed him towards the castle. Only Simon glanced behind him at the ungainly lump of cold flesh, still spread-eagled, which had been Munter. His glance conveyed an embarrassed regret, almost a look of apology that they should have to desert him, leave him so uncomfortably circumstanced.

Ambrose led them into the business room and switched on the desk lamp. The atmosphere was at once conspiratorial; they were like a gang of dressing-gowned schoolchildren planning a midnight prank. He said:

'We have a decision to make. Do we tell Grogan what happened at dinner? I think we ought to agree this before I telephone the police.'

Ivo said:

'If you mean, do we tell the police that Munter accused Ralston of murder, why not say so plainly?'

Simon's hair, plastered over his brow and dripping water into his eyes, looked unnaturally black. He was shivering under the dressing-gown. He looked from face to face, astounded.

'But he didn't accuse Sir George of… well, of any particular murder. And he was drunk! He didn't know what he was saying. You all saw him. He was drunk!' His voice was getting dangerously close to hysteria.

Ambrose spoke with a trace of impatience.

'No one here thinks it of any importance. But the police may. And anything that Munter did or said during the last hours of his life will obviously interest them. There's a lot to be said for saying nothing, for not complicating the investigation. But we have to give roughly the same account. If some tell and the others don't, those who opt for reticence will obviously be placed in an invidious position.'

Simon said:

'Do you mean that we pretend that he didn't come in through the dining-room windows, that we didn't see him?'

'Of course not. He was drunk and we all saw him in that state. We tell the police the truth. The only question is, how much of the truth?'

Cordelia said quietly:

'It isn't only Munter's shouted accusation at Sir George. After you and Simon had taken Munter out Sir George told us about an army friend of his who had drunk in just that compulsive way…'

Ivo finished the sentence for her:

'And had been drowned in just that way. The police will find that an interesting coincidence. So unless Sir George told you both the same story on a different occasion – which I take it he didn't – Cordelia and I are already in what you might call an invidious position.'

Ambrose took in this information in silence. It seemed to give him some satisfaction. Then he pronounced:

'In that case the choice would seem to be; do we all give a truthful account of the evening's proceedings or do we omit Munter's shout of "murder" and the story about Ralston's unfortunate friend?'

Cordelia said:

'I think we should tell the truth. Lying to the police isn't as easy as it sounds.' Roma said:

'You speak from experience perhaps.'

Cordelia ignored the note of malice and went on:

'They'll question us closely. What did Munter say when he burst in? What did the rest of us talk about when Ambrose and Simon were helping him to bed? It isn't only a question of omitting embarrassing facts. We have to agree on the same lies. That's apart from any moral considerations.'

Ambrose said easily:

'I don't think we need complicate the decision with moral considerations. Doing evil that good may come is a perfectly valid option whatever the theologians tell you. Besides, I imagine that we all did a little judicious editing in our interviews with Grogan. I did. He seemed to feel that my staging the play for Clarissa required explaining so I told him that she gave me the idea for Autopsy. An ingenious but quite unnecessary lie. So our first decision is easy. We tell the truth, or we agree on a story. I suggest we take a secret ballot.'

Ivo said quietly:

'Here, or do we all repair to the crypt?'

Ambrose ignored him. He turned first to where Simon stood, his chattering mouth half open, his washed face pale under the feverish eyes, and thought better of it. He said to Cordelia with formal courtesy:

'Would you be good enough to bring me two cups from the kitchen? I think you know the way.'

The short journey, the incongruous errand, seemed to her of immense significance. She walked down the empty passages and into the kitchen and took down two breakfast cups from the dresser with grave deliberateness as if an unseen audience were watching the grace of every movement. When she got back to the business room it seemed to her that no one had moved.

Ambrose thanked her gravely and placed the cups side by side on the desk. Then he went out to the display cabinet and returned carrying the round board with its coloured marbles, Princess Victoria's solitaire board. He said: 'We each take a marble. Then we close our eyes – no peeping I implore you – and drop them into one of the cups. We'll make it easy to remember. The left cup for the more sinister option, the right for righteousness. You'll see that I've even aligned the handles appropriately so there's no excuse for confusion. When we've heard the five marbles drop we open our eyes. It's convenient that Roma wasn't at dinner. There's no possibility of a tie.'

Sir George spoke for the first time. He said:

'You're wasting time, Gorringe. You'd better ring for the police now. Obviously we tell Grogan the truth.'

Ambrose took his marble, selecting it with some care and examining its veining as if he were a connoisseur of such trifles.

'If that's what you want, that's what you vote for.'

Ivo said:

'Do you then intend to take a second ballot to decide whether we tell the police about the first ballot?'

But he took a marble. Sir George, Simon and Cordelia followed. She closed her eyes. There was a second's silence and then she heard the first marble tinkle into the cup. The second followed almost immediately, then a third. She stretched out her hands. They were briefly brushed by ice-cold fingers. She felt for the cups and placed a hand on each so that there could be no mistake. Then she dropped the marble into the right-hand cup. A second later she heard the last marble fall. The sound was unexpectedly loud; it must have been dropped from a height. She opened her eyes. Her companions were all blinking as if the period of darkness had lasted for hours, not seconds. Together they looked into the cups. The right-hand one held three marbles.

Ambrose said:

'Well, that simplifies matters. We tell the truth, apart of course, from mentioning this little divertissement. We came together into the business room and you all sat here together appropriately subdued while I rang the police. We've only spent a few minutes so there will be no embarrassing hiatus of time to account for.'

He replaced the marbles, after carefully scrutinizing each one, handed the two cups to Cordelia, and took up the telephone receiver. As she was returning the cups to the kitchen two thoughts chiefly occupied her. Why had Sir George waited until the ballot was inevitable before announcing that he favoured the truth, and which of the other two of them had dropped their marbles into the left-hand cup? She did briefly wonder whether anyone could have transferred someone else's marble in addition to dropping his own, but decided that this would have required some sleight of hand even if done with open eyes. Her own ears were exceptionally sharp and they had detected only the four clear tinkles as the other marbles fell.

Ambrose was apparently practising a policy of togetherness. He waited until she returned before ringing the Speymouth police station. He said:

'It's Ambrose Gorringe speaking from Courcy Island. Will you tell Chief Inspector Grogan that my buder Munter is dead. He was found in the pool here, apparently drowned.'

Cordelia thought that the statement was notable for being brief, accurate and carefully non-committal. Ambrose for one was keeping an open mind on the cause of Munter's death. The rest of the conversation was monosyllabic. Ambrose eventually replaced the receiver. He said:

'That was the duty sergeant. He'll let Grogan know. He says not to move the body. The less interference the better until the police arrive.'

There was a silence in which it seemed to Cordelia that they all simultaneously recognized that they were cold, that it wasn't yet half-past six and that while it might appear unfeeling to express a wish to return to bed and hopeless to expect sleep once there, it was unreasonably early to get dressed and face the day.

Ambrose said:

'Would anyone care for tea or coffee? I don't know what's likely to happen about breakfast. You may get none unless I cook it, but I assure you I'm perfectly competent. Is anyone hungry?'

No one admitted to being hungry. Roma shivered and hunched herself deeper into her padded nylon dressing-gown. She said:

'Tea would be welcome, the stronger the better. And then I, for one, am going back to bed.'

There was a general murmur of acquiescence. Then Simon spoke.

'There's something I forgot. There's some kind of box down there. I felt it when I released the body. Ought I to bring it up?'

'The jewel casket!' Roma turned re-animated, the desire for bed apparently forgotten.

'So he had it after all!'

Simon said eagerly:

'I don't think it's the casket. It felt larger, more smooth. He must have dropped it as he fell.' Ambrose hesitated:

'I suppose we ought to wait until the police arrive. On the other hand, I have a curiosity to see what it is, if Simon has no objection to a second immersion.'

So far from objecting, the boy, shivering as he was with cold, seemed impatient to get back to the pool. Cordelia wondered if he had temporarily forgotten that sprawled body. She had never seen him so animated, almost frantic. Perhaps it was the result of being, for once, the centre of the action.

Ivo said:

'I think I can contain my curiosity. I'm going back to bed. If anyone is making tea later I'd be grateful if you'd bring up a cup.'

He left on his own. Roma was apparently cured both of her headache and tiredness. They returned to the pool. The fading moon was tissue thin and the sky was streaked with the first light of day. The air rose in a thin mist from the water and struck them with a damp autumnal chill. Bereft of the moonlight's bleak enchantment and the sense of unreality which moonlight bestows, the body looked at once more human and more grotesque. The flesh of the left cheek, resting against the stones, was pressed upwards to distort the eye so that it seemed to be leering at them, ironic and knowing. From the drooling mouth a trickle of bloodstained saliva had hung and dried on the stubble of the chin. The sodden clothes looked as if they had already shrunk and a thin stream of water still ran from the trouser legs and dripped slowly into the pool. In the uncertain light of the first dawn it seemed to Cordelia that his life blood was seeping away, unregarded and unstaunched. She said:

'Can't we at least cover him up?'

'Of course.' Ambrose was at once solicitous.

'Could you fetch something from the house, Cordelia? A tablecloth, a sheet, a towel, or even a coat would do. I'm sure you'll find something suitable.'

Roma turned on him, her voice harsh.

'Why send Cordelia? Why should she be expected to run all the errands round here? She's not paid to take your orders. Cordelia isn't your servant. Munter was.'

Ambrose looked at her as if she were an unintelligent child who had for once succeeded in making a sensible remark.

He said calmly:

'You're perfectly right. I'll go myself.'

But Roma, in angry spate, was beyond appeasement.

'Munter was your servant and you can't even bring yourself to say you're sorry he's dead. You don't care do you? You didn't care about Clarissa and you don't care about him. Nothing touches you as long as you're comfortable and saved from boredom. You haven't said a word of regret since we found his body. And who are you, for God's sake? Your grandfather made his money out of liver pills and gripewater. You haven't even the excuse of caste for not behaving like a human being.'

For a second Ambrose's body froze and two moons of red appeared on the smooth cheeks, then as quickly faded leaving him very pale. But his voice hardly altered. 'The only human being I know how to behave like is myself. I shall grieve for Munter in my own time and place. This hardly seems an appropriate moment for a valediction. But if its absence offends you I can always emulate Prince Hal.

What! old acquaintance! could not all this flesh Keep in a little life? Poor Jack, farewell, I could have better spared a better man.

And if it's any comfort to you, I would rather see all of you, with one possible exception, dead at the bottom of my pool than lose Carl Munter. But you're right about Cordelia. One is too ready to take advantage of competence and kindness.'

After he had left there was an embarrassed silence. Roma, her face blotched, her chin creased with stubborn anger, stood a little apart. She had the truculent, slightly defensive air of a child who knows that she has said something indefensible but who is not altogether ungratified by the result.

Suddenly she swung round and said gruffly:

'Well, at least I managed to provoke a human reaction from our host. So now we know where we stand. I take it that Cordelia is the privileged one among us whom Ambrose would be reluctant to see dead at the bottom of his pool. Even he isn't entirely immune to a pretty face, apparently.'

Sir George stared down at the water lilies. 'He's upset. Natural, after all. Hardly the time to quarrel among ourselves.'

Cordelia felt that she ought to make some comment, but unable to think of anything appropriate, remained silent. She was puzzled by Roma's outburst which she hardly felt was the result of concern or affection for herself. It could, she supposed, have been a gesture of feminine solidarity or a blast against male arrogance. But she suspected that it was more likely a spontaneous release of pent-up terror and shock. Whatever the cause, the result had been interesting. And Ambrose had been remarkably apt with his quotation from King Henry IV Part I. Was that because he was a natural lover of Shakespeare, or because he had recendy been spending some time looking through the Shakespearean section of The Penguin Dictionary of Quotations?

They heard Ambrose's returning footsteps on the stones. He was carrying a folded red-checked table-cloth. While they watched he shook it out then let it fall gently over the body. Cordelia thought that, as a temporary shroud, it was hardly the most appropriate covering he could have found. He knelt and tucked it solicitously round the body as if making it comfortable. Still no one spoke. Then Sir George turned to Simon and barked out his order. 'Right, boy. Let's get on with it.'

Simon had already judged the depth of the pool and this time he dived. His body cleft the water in a neat curve parting the water lilies. There was a flurry and a brief commotion. And then his sleek head broke the surface and he raised both his arms high. Between them he held a dark wooden box about twelve inches by nine. A few seconds later he had pushed his burden into Ambrose's waiting hands and was drawing himself up over the side of the pool. He gasped:

'It was caught under the netting. What is it?'

For reply Ambrose opened the lid. The musical-box, watertight, had emerged a little scratched but otherwise undamaged. The cylinder slowly turned and a tinkle of sweet, disjointed notes plucked out a familiar tune, one which Cordelia had last heard during the final rehearsal, 'The Bluebells of Scotland'.

They listened silently until the tune was at an end. Then there was a pause and the next tinkle began, soon to be identified as 'My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean'.

Ambrose closed the box. He said:

'The last time I saw this it was with the other musical-box on the props table. He must have been taking it back to the tower room. This would be the direct route from the theatre to the tower.'

'But why? What was the hurry?'

Roma frowned at the box as if its appearance had disappointed her expectations. Ambrose said:

'There was no hurry. But he was drunk and I suppose he was acting irrationally. Munter shared my slight obsession with order and he strongly disliked any of the things in the castle being used as theatrical props. I suppose his muddled brain thought that this was as good a time as any to start putting things to rights.'

Cordelia thought that Sir George had been remarkably silent. Now he spoke for the first time.

'What else has he moved? What about the other box?'

'That was kept in the cupboard in the business room. As far as I can remember, one box was there, the second with the clutter in the tower room.'

Sir George turned to Simon.

'Better get dressed, boy. You're shivering. There's nothing else to do here.'

It was a dismissal, almost brutal in its peremptoriness! Simon seemed to realize for the first time that he was cold. His teeth began to chatter. He hesitated, nodded, then shambled off.

Roma said:

'That boy has more talents than I gave him credit for. And how, incidentally, did he know what Clarissa's jewel box was like? I thought you only gave it to her when she arrived on Friday morning.'

Cordelia said:

‘I suppose he knows in the same way as you and I know; because we've been to her room and been shown it.' Roma turned to go.

'Oh, I realized, of course, that he must have been in her room. I was just wondering when exactly.' She added:

'And how did he know that Munter was carrying the box when he fell? It could have been lying there on the bottom for months?'

'It was a safe assumption, surely, given the position of the body and the fact that it and the box were both caught by the netting.'

Ambrose's voice held a lightness and a determined incuriosity which Cordelia sensed was a little too controlled, a little too careful. He added:

'Why not leave the questions to Grogan. One amateur detective in the house is surely enough. And accusations of murder come more appropriately from the police, don't you feel?'

Roma turned away, hunching her shoulders more deeply into the collar of her dressing-gown. 'Well, I'll get back to bed. Perhaps I could have some tea in my room too when you get around to making it. And when I've had my stint with Grogan I'll relieve you of my presence here. Either the Courcy curse is still operative or, in your paradise, death is becoming infectious.'

Ambrose watched while, she stumped away and disappeared into the shadows of the arches. He said:

'That woman could be dangerous.'

Sir George was still staring after her departing back. 'Only unhappy.'

'With a woman that amounts to the same thing. And with those beefy swimmer's shoulders, she shouldn't wear a padded dressing-gown. And she shouldn't choose that shade of blue, or any blue for that matter. I suppose that we may as well see whether the second musical-box is back where it's normally kept.'

Back in the business room he knelt and opened the doors of a walnut chiffonier. Cordelia could see that it contained a number of box files, two carefully wrapped parcels which could have been ornaments as yet unpacked, and a box in dark wood similar in size to the first. He placed it on the table and raised the lid. The box plucked out the tune 'Greensleeves'. Sir George said:

'So he did return it. Odd? Probably couldn't rest until he'd started putting things to rights.' Cordelia said:

'Except that he's changed them around. This one belonged in the tower room.'

Ambrose's voice was unexpectedly sharp. 'How can you possibly know?'

'Because I saw it there on Friday afternoon while Clarissa was rehearsing. I went to explore the tower and found the room. I couldn't be mistaken.'

'They look very alike.'

'But they play a different tune. I opened the box in the tower, this box. It played "Greensleeves". The one used at the rehearsal played the Scottish medley. You know. You were there.'

Sir George said:

'So yesterday afternoon he fetched this one from the tower and not from the business room.' He turned to Ambrose. 'Did you know that, Gorringe?'

'Naturally not. I knew that we had two boxes and that one was kept here, the other in the tower room. I didn't know which was which. They aren't a particular passion of mine. When Munter told me what he also told the police, that he hadn't left the ground-floor apartments and that he'd fetched a musical-box from the business room, I saw no reason to doubt him.'

Cordelia said:

'When Clarissa or the producer first asked for a musical-box, he acted as one would expect. He fetched the nearer and less valuable box. Why trouble to go all the way to the tower room when there was a box easily to hand here in the business room? He wouldn't have gone to the tower room if Clarissa hadn't rejected the first box.'

Ambrose said:

'The only entrance to the tower is from the gallery. Munter lied to the police. At about two o'clock yesterday he was within a few feet of Clarissa's door. That means he could have seen someone entering or leaving. The police may feel that he could have gone in to her himself, locked door or no locked door. And that's why he was so obsessive about returning the boxes, each to the room he said he'd taken it from. He needn't have troubled, of course, I don't see how anyone could have known the truth. It was pure chance that you, Cordelia, wandered into the tower and found the second box. Whether the police believe you is, of course, another matter.' Cordelia said:

'It wasn't altogether chance. If Clarissa hadn't ordered me out of the theatre I should have watched the rehearsal to the end. And I don't see why the police shouldn't believe me. They may find it easier to believe that. I was curious to explore the tower room than that you, who are so fond of your Victoriana, didn't know precisely where you kept each of your musical-boxes.'

As soon as she had spoken, she wondered whether this frankness had been wise; spoken to her host, it had hardly been courteous. But Ambrose accepted the comment without offence. He said easily:

'You're probably right. I doubt whether they'll believe either of us. After all they only have our word for it that Munter lied. And it's very convenient for us, isn't it; a dead suspect who can't now deny what any of us choose to say about him? The butler did it. Even in fiction, so I'm led to believe, that solution is regarded as unsatisfactory.'

Sir George lifted his head:

'I think the police launches are arriving.'

He must, thought Cordelia, have remarkable ears for an ageing man. Hers had caught nothing. And then she sensed rather than heard the throb of engines. They looked at each other. For the first time Cordelia saw in their eyes what she knew they must be recognizing in hers, the flicker of fear. Ambrose said:

'I'll meet them at the quay. You two had better get back to the body.'

Sir George and Cordelia were alone. If it were to be said it had to be said now, before the police questioning began. But it was hard to get out the words, and when she did they sounded harsh, accusatory.

'You recognized that drowned face, didn't you? You think he could have been Blythe's son?' He said unsurprised:

'It did strike me, yes. Never occurred to me before.' 'You'd never seen Munter like that before, his face upturned, dead and drowned. That's how you last saw his father.' 'What made you think of it?'

'Your face when you looked down at him. The War Memorial he decorates every Armistice day. The words he shouted out at you, murderer, murderer! It was his father he meant, not Clarissa. And I think he muttered in German to Simon. Even his Christian name. Didn't Ambrose say he was Carl? And his height. His father died slowly because he was so tall. But, most of all, his name. Munter is German for "blithe". It's one of the few German words I know.'

She had seen that look of strained endurance on his face before, but all he said was: 'Could be. Could be.' She asked:

'Are you going to tell Grogan?'

'No. None of his business. Not relevant.'

'Not even if they arrest you for murder?'

'They won't. I didn't kill my wife.' Suddenly he said, quickly as if the words were forced out of him:

'I don't believe I deliberately let them kill him. May have done. Difficult to understand one's motives. Used to think it was all so simple.'

Cordelia said:

'You don't have to explain to me. It's none of my business. And you were a young officer at the time. You can't have been in command here.'

'No, but I was on duty that evening. Should have discovered that something was afoot, should have stopped it. But I hated Blythe so much that I couldn't trust myself to go near him. That's one thing you never forget or forgive, cruelty when you're a child and defenceless. I shut my mind and my eyes to anything that concerned him. May have shut them deliberately. You could call it a dereliction of duty.'

'But no one did. There was no court martial, was there? No one blamed you.'

'I blame myself.'

There was a moment's silence, then he said:

'Never knew he was married. No mention of a wife at the inquest. There was talk of a girl in Speymouth but she never showed herself. No talk of a child.'

'Munter probably wasn't born. And he could have been illegitimate. I don't suppose we shall ever know. But his mother must have been bitter about what happened. He probably grew up believing that the Army had murdered his father. I wonder why he took a job on the island; curiosity, filial duty, the hope of revenge? But he couldn't have expected that you would turn up here.'

'He might have hoped for it. He took the job in the summer of 1978. I married Clarissa that year, and she has known Ambrose Gorringe nearly all her life. Munter probably kept track of me. I'm not exactly a nonentity.'

Cordelia said:

'The police have made mistakes before now. If they do arrest you I shall feel free to tell them. I shall have to tell them.' He said quietly:

'No, Cordelia. It's my concern, my past, my life.' Cordelia cried:

'But you must see how it will look to the police! If they believe me about the musical-box, they'll know that Munter was in the gallery a few feet from your wife's room at about the time she died. If he didn't kill her himself, he could have seen the person who did. Taken with that shout to you of "murderer" it's damning unless you tell them who Munter was.'

He didn't respond but stood rigid as a sentry, his eyes gazing into nothingness. She said:

'If they arrest the wrong person it's a double injustice. It means that the guilty one goes free. Is that what you want?'

'Would it be the wrong person? If she hadn't married me she'd be alive today.'

'You can't know that!'

'I can feel it. Who was it said we owe God a death?' 'I can't remember. Someone in Shakespeare's Henry IV. But what has that to do with it?'

'Nothing, I expect. It came into my mind.'

She was getting nowhere. Beneath that apparently guileless and inarticulate front of personality he harboured his private under-cover agent, a mind more complex and perhaps more ruthless than she had imagined. And he wasn't a fool, this deceptively simple soldier. He knew precisely the extent of his danger. And that could mean that he had his own suspicions; that there was someone he wanted to protect. And she didn't think that it would be either Ambrose or Ivo. She said helplessly:

'I don't know what you want of me. Am I to carry on with the case?'

'No point is there? Nothing can frighten her ever again. Better leave it to the professionals.' He added awkwardly, 'I'll pay, of course, for your time so far. I'm not ungrateful.'

Ungrateful for what? She wondered.

He turned and looked down at Munter's body. He said:

'Extraordinary business, putting that wreath on the War Memorial every year. Do you suppose Gorringe will keep up the tradition?'

'I shouldn't think so.'

'He should. I'll have a word with him. Oldfield could see to it.'

They turned to make their way across the rose garden, then stopped. Coming across the lawn towards them in the pale apricot light, their footfalls absorbed by the soft grass, were Grogan and his coterie of officers. Cordelia was caught unawares. Facing their silent, inexorable advance, their bleak, unsmiling faces, she resisted the temptation to glance at Sir George. But she wondered whether he shared her sudden and irrational vision of how the two of them must look to the police, as guilty and discomforted as a couple of poachers surprised by the gamekeepers with their dead spoils at their feet.