I could see what Darcy had told me about his father not being an easy man. I didn’t reply to this but went through to the kitchen. There was evidence here of a woman’s touch. Mrs. McNalley had left everything spotless and neat. I put the kettle on and found the pot and tea caddy. Then I put cups and saucers on a tray and added a milk jug and a sugar bowl. When I brought the tray back out, they were sitting in armchairs around the fire, not saying much by the look of it. I handed each of them a cup.

“Now, this is a novelty,” Lord Kilhenny said. “It’s not every day I sit next to a princess and I’m waited on by the daughter of a royal duke.”

“Then you should take that as a sign that you have help in high places,” Zou Zou said. “We are here. We came to Ireland for one reason. To save you from the hangman’s noose. So let’s get started. Darcy?”

She turned to Darcy, who was staring into the flickering flames of the fire. Wind puffed smoke down the chimney, making it swirl out across the room. Darcy cleared his throat then spoke. “You say you remember nothing about that evening. Have no details come back to you? You don’t remember going over to the castle?”

“In the afternoon, I did,” Lord Kilhenny said. “But as to the evening, it’s all a blank. I remember sitting down and pouring myself a glass of Jameson and turning on the wireless to listen to the news. The next thing I knew it was daylight and the police were pounding on the door.”

“When you went up to the castle in the afternoon, apparently you had an argument with Mr. Roach. The valet overheard you shouting.”

Lord Kilhenny nodded. “That is correct. I was furious. I got a copy of an auction catalog and I learned that he planned to sell several of our family treasures, including the Burda club. I went up to the castle to tell him he couldn’t do that. They belonged in the castle—they were part of the O’Mara family heritage.”

“Why did you let him have those things in the first place?” Darcy demanded. “Surely they could have been kept out of the sale.”