“There is something else, Chief Inspector,” I said, wondering as I uttered the words whether I should have kept quiet. “If we now think an outsider came here to kill Mr. Roach, we have been told of two strangers seen near the castle who might be of interest. One was a big man who claimed to be Professor Peabody of the University of Southern Nebraska. He visited the archeological site across the lane, but the students who were working there got the impression that he didn’t know much about Irish archeology. What’s more, there is no University of Southern Nebraska, apparently. And then there was a young priest who inquired about Mr. Roach. One of your constables, Constable Byrne, wasn’t it? Said that he didn’t know of any young priests in this area. So either of them could have come looking for Roach.”

The inspector was watching me intently. “The young lady with royal connections, I remember. But this still doesn’t answer the question of how any of them could have gotten into the castle. Riley says nobody came and he would have had to let them in.”

“It is possible to scale the wall in places if one puts one’s mind to it,” Darcy said.

“But it’s not exactly easy to get into the building itself, is it?” Callahan said.

“Riley said the servants’ entrance wasn’t always locked,” Darcy said.

The inspector’s face remained passive. “I shall take what you’ve said under advisement. In the meantime I suggest we all wait and see what the Americans turn up. Perhaps the man wasn’t even American. Perhaps we’ll never know.”

And with those encouraging words he turned to the constable who was hovering by the door. “Please show these people out, Harris.”

“Well?” I asked as we drove back to the gates. “Did you see anything of interest? Did he let you look at the scene of the crime?”

“To be frank it was so dark everywhere that I couldn’t see much,” he said. “I didn’t notice anything obvious missing from the walls. Of course, I hadn’t been home here for many years now. It’s funny, but things always seemed so much bigger as a child. The library was smaller than I remembered it, but then, we were not encouraged to go into the library. It was my father’s realm.”

“Goodness, the snow is really coming down now, isn’t it?” Zou Zou said. “Reminds me of Poland. I can’t tell you how dreary our winters were there.”