Hoskins left obediently, and returned a moment or two later with Sergeant Cottrell, a brisk young man with a good opinion of himself, who always managed to annoy his superior officer. Inspector Bland much preferred the rural wisdom of Hoskins to the smart know-all attitude of Frank Cottrell.

‘Still searching the grounds, sir,’ said Cottrell. ‘The lady hasn’t passed out through the gate, we’re quite sure of that. It’s the second gardener who’s there giving out the tickets and taking the admission money. He’ll swear she hasn’t left.’

‘There are other ways of leaving than by the main gate, I suppose?’

‘Oh, yes, sir. There’s the path down to the ferry, but the old boy down there – Merdell, his name is – is also quite positive that she hasn’t left that way. He’s about a hundred, but pretty reliable, I think. He described quite clearly how the foreign gentleman arrived in his launch and asked the way to Nasse House. The old man told him he must go up the road to the gate and pay for admission. But he said the gentleman seemed to know nothing about the fête and said he was a relation of the family. So the old man set him on the path up from the ferry through the woods. Merdell seems to have been hanging about the quay all the afternoon so he’d be pretty sure to have seen her ladyship if she’d come that way. Then there’s the top gate that leads over the fields to Hoodown Park, but that’s been wired up because of trespassers, so she didn’t go through there. Seems as though she must be still here, doesn’t it?’

‘That may be so,’ said the inspector, ‘but there’s nothing to prevent her, is there, from slipping under a fence and going off across country? Sir George is still complaining of trespassing here from the hostel next door, I understand. If you can get in the way the trespassers get in, you can get out the same way, I suppose.’

‘Oh, yes, sir, indubitably, sir. But I’ve talked to her maid, sir. She’s wearing’ – Cottrell consulted a paper in his hand – ‘a dress of cyclamen crêpe georgette (whatever that is), a large black hat, black court shoes with four-inch french heels. Not the sort of things you’d wear for a cross-country run.’

‘She didn’t change her clothes?’

‘No. I went into that with the maid. There’s nothing missing – nothing whatever. She didn’t pack a suitcase or anything of that kind. She didn’t even change her shoes. Every pair’s there and accounted for.’

Inspector Bland frowned. Unpleasant possibilities were rising in his mind. He said curtly:

‘Get me that secretary woman again – Bruce – whatever her name is.’

II

Miss Brewis came in looking rather more ruffled than usual, and a little out of breath.