‘Well, as good as,’ David said, hedging now. ‘Everyone knew that the gentleman in question was just waiting for the right signal to get down on one knee. And Millie, the little minx, had been humming and hawing, but showed certain signs to those of us in the know that she was working up her courage to give him the nod, as it were. In fact, I rather thought things might have ended with an announcement that night.’ David nodded emphatically once more, his plump cheeks all but aquiver with glee. ‘Millie did seem to be buzzing with excitement at the beginning of the night. You know, like you do when you’re hugging a secret to yourself? I took it to mean she was going to finally throw caution to the winds and say “be damned to you all” and make it official.’ He paused to smile and take a sip from his mug of mulled wine. ‘And I wasn’t the only one who thought something was in the air either, you mark my words! Those ghastly children of hers were going around with faces like something out of a Shakespearean tragedy.’

He gave a gleeful little titter of remembrance, then tried to look contrite.

He failed.

‘I see,’ Trudy said, taking it all in. She couldn’t help but wonder how reliable their voluble witness was, and glanced at Clement. He too was frowning slightly in concentration as he considered the possible ramifications of this latest information. Did it, in fact, get them any further forward?

Trudy could, she supposed, understand why Millicent Vander had been in no great hurry to mention the fact that she was rather closer to the victim than she’d implied. Worry, grief, shock, the need to save face or a combination of any of these things might have contributed to her silence. She was too intelligent – and socially sensitive – not to have been aware that her so-called friends were probably gossiping and laughing about her behind her back. Challenging the social mores of her peers wouldn’t have been easy for a woman like her. Was this gossipy, fussy little man really reliable in what he was saying?

‘She must have been very fond of him to consider marrying a man quite a number of years younger than herself,’ she mused delicately. ‘And if she was in love with him, his death will have been a real tragedy for her.’

David O’Connor looked, to his credit, genuinely upset now. ‘Oh yes, I think she did love him, poor thing. And you’re right – it’s so sad. Terry too, dying so young! Such a good-looking man. What a shame. Mind you …’ The sympathy seemed to vanish with astonishing quickness and a much more sly, thoughtful, perhaps even slightly spiteful look came to his eyes. ‘I got the feeling there might have been a serpent in paradise, for all that.’