After quickly downing her tea, Phyllida broke off a piece of the biscuit to sample, then gave the rest of it and her cup to Elton with the instructions to return it to the kitchen and to send Molly back with more tea service. Then she went into the sitting room to evaluate the situation.

“Oh, there you are, Mrs. Bright,” said Agatha when she caught sight of Phyllida.

Phyllida smiled at her but didn’t reply. Someone had stoked up a fire in the room, and the damp writers had pulled up their chairs around the welcome blaze.

They were, of course, talking about murder.

“The question is always motive,” Mr. Chesterton was saying in a manner that suggested he’d been holding forth for some time. He was waving his pince-nez for emphasis. “When my little Father Brown solves a case, he puts himself inside the head of every suspect and imagines how he or she would create evil, and why. As a priest and confessor, he hears the most vile, base, and evil stories, and thus he is not as sheltered as one might think. Nothing could be too surprising or too unbelievable for him—”

“Yes, yes, G. K., we know all about Father Brown. He’s truly delightful. But he’s fictional,” said Mr. Berkeley, somehow still appearing suave and smooth despite the rush to come in from out of the rain. He held a cigarette between two long fingers. “And we have a very unfictional situation here. We ought to have our own Crime Club and attempt to solve this mystery.”

“As in your Poisoned Chocolates book?” said Agatha. “Which I did enjoy quite a lot, Anthony—it was very clever—but I don’t really think—”

“But I do, Agatha! After all, we were in the unique position of being witnesses to the murder,” Mr. Berkeley went on. “When would such an opportunity present itself again? Hopefully never,” he added quickly.

Phyllida listened to the ensuing discussion—which included Agatha demurring such a notion, whilst her colleagues seized on it. She exchanged glances with her employer as she made the rounds silently refilling teacups and offering the plate of biscuits Molly had delivered.

“What that inspector needs to do is take the fingerprints of everyone who was here last night,” said Miss Sayers firmly. “And I didn’t see him with a magnifying glass—what about you, Agatha?”

“He certainly doesn’t seem quite interested in crawling about on the ground looking for clues,” murmured Agatha, giving Phyllida a glance.

“I told the inspector not to waste his time interviewing us,” said Mr. Berkeley on an exhale from his cigarette. “Obviously, none of us would have done such a thing.”

“Certainly not,” said Mr. Chesterton, who’d settled his pince-nez back into place.

“But I suppose one of us might have noticed something important,” Agatha said quietly.