Phyllida turned to the papers Agatha had given her last night. The judging members of the Detection Club, including those who hadn’t attended the Murder Fête, had been written out. Each member had one sheet with all of the story submissions listed on it, and they’d gone through and written their scores for each story by category of plot, characterization, tone, and overall.

Phyllida quickly went through and retabulated all of the results.. . .

And then she stared at the final score on Father Tooley’s sheet.

They were identical.

Which didn’t make any sense. Why would someone erase the scores and then put the same—the correct!—numbers back in?

Phyllida sat back with a gusty sigh and took a very large drink of oversweetened tea. Rye was still ignoring her from his perch atop her bookshelf, his delicate pink nose held aloft, but Stilton had leaped onto the desk and allowed Phyllida to stroke her along her arching spine.

Think. Think! she told herself. She’d been so close to understanding everything . . . and then this.

The jarring ring of the telephone in the hallway outside her sitting room had her rising swiftly to her feet before she could formulate the answer.

She hurried from the room, certain the news would be bad—news of Dr. Bhatt in custody for the murders of Rita, Father Tooley, and Eugene Whittlesby.

“Mallowan Hall,” she said in a calm voice that belied her anxiety.

“Is that Mrs. Bright?” came a female voice that she recognized as Mrs. Dilly from Tangled Vines Cottage.

“It is,” Phyllida replied.

“Only, I told Drewson we should ring up and tell you,” said the Whittlesbys’ cook. “And he said I shouldn’t bother, but you said if there was anything unusual, we should be letting you know.”

“Yes?” Phyllida said, hoping the cook would get to the point rather quickly and not tie up the telephone line.

“Well, the Whittlesbys were coming back home today, and seeing as how they were, Mrs. Alastair telephoned and said as how their bedchambers should be all cleaned up and ready—you know Drewson and Louella ain’t allowed in there much”—Phyllida also knew that she had advised the servants to do just that yesterday, hadn’t she?—“but they went about doing it all, and Drewson found something.”

“Yes?” Phyllida said far more patiently than she felt.

“There was a shirt under Mr. Alastair’s bed, there was, and it had strawberry jam on it. Right on the cuff. Or it might’ve been raspberry jam, he—Drewson, you know—ain’t sure, and I sure ain’t gonna taste it, Mrs. Bright.”

“I see,” Phyllida replied, her mind turning again. “When was the last time Mr. Whittlesby had strawberry—or raspberry—jam, do you think? Or, perhaps I should ask, how long do you think that shirt has been there?” Based on the state of the bedchambers, she could only guess.