“I suppose so.”

“You suppose so. What does that mean?”

“Yes, someone could have pushed over the lamp.”

“Did you see anyone while you were out on the hill, being worried?”

“I didn’t see anyone, but I heard somebody walking down the track.”

“Towards Mr. Todd’s residence?”

“Yes.”

“When was that?”

“I’m not very sure. Perhaps three-quarters of an hour before the fire.”

“Did you hear them return?”

“No.”

“Who was it?”

“I told you. I couldn’t see.”

He did not know why he lied. Perhaps it was an attempt to maintain some independence in the presence of this dominant man. So powerful did Savage seem that John almost expected him to detect the untruth, but the Superintendent continued:

“Now. Go through the events of this morning.”

His memory sharpened by the detailed questioning, by the intense concentration of the man who sat opposite, John relived for Savage the phone call from the coastguard, the tedium of helping. Elizabeth in the kitchen, the conversation at breakfast.

“So while you were at breakfast you learned that Mr. Packham had arranged to meet Mr. Todd in the seawatching hide.”

“Elizabeth told me. They had fixed it up at supper, after I’d left.”

“Was everyone aware that this arrangement had been made?”

“I don’t know. Certainly Nick and Mark were aware of it. That’s why they didn’t go into the seawatching hide. Charlie and Jerry worked together. Jerry did the drawings for Charlie’s books. The boys didn’t want to intrude.”

“Do you know why Mr. Packham did not keep his appointment with Mr. Todd?”

“No.”

But the answer was not as definite as the others had been. Savage stopped the relentless questions, paused, then asked: “Are you sure?”

This time John was unable to he. “Well, Jerry and Pam Marshall are known to be … friendly. They always sleep in adjacent single rooms when they’re here.” He allowed himself one of Mark’s schoolboy grins to cover his awkwardness. “I thought perhaps he’d had a tiring night and had overslept.”

“Who else had been outside before breakfast?”

“Nick and Mark had been doing a seawatch from the cliffs. Miss Carson had been out. She was looking very wet and bedraggled.”

“What would she have been doing outside?”

“Going for a walk, I expect.”

“In that weather? She must be nearly seventy.”

“Miss Carson always takes a walk before breakfast when she’s staying at the observatory. She wouldn’t alter her routine for a hurricane.”

“Anyone else?”

John hesitated and Savage repeated: “Anyone else?”

“Elizabeth went out for a while while I was helping her to cook the breakfast. As I told you, she’s pregnant. She was feeling sick. She was only gone for ten minutes, and the hide was already cut off from the island then. She told me when she came in.”

“Do you know what the other residents were doing while you were preparing breakfast?”

“No.”

“We’ll move on now to the time after breakfast. You and your two friends went to the sea watching hide together?”