It was straightforward enough. Death by drowning following insensibility caused by a blow on the head. The piece of rock was undoubtedly the instrument. Contents of stomach, Sir James briskly continued, showed that she’d had a cup of tea and a biscuit about an hour and three-quarters before she died. On Dr Maine’s evidence he would agree that she had probably been dead about an hour when Alleyn found her. Sir James had another case more or less on the way back to London and would like to get off before he himself was drowned. Would Alleyn let him know about the inquest? Dr Maine would tell him anything else he wanted to hear and was now on his way back to Portcarrow. ‘I’m told you’re on an island,’ said Sir James, merrily. ‘You’ll be likely to stay there if the weather report’s to be trusted. What book will you choose if you can only have one?’

‘The Gentle Art of Making Enemies,’ said Alleyn and hung up.

He told Pender that he and Fox would return after dinner and asked him what he himself would do for a meal. Pender said that there was a cut loaf and some butter and ham in Miss Cost’s refrigerator and would it be going too far if he and Cissy made sandwiches? There was also some cheese and pickle. They could, he said, be replaced.

‘You can’t beat a cheese and pickle sandwich,’ Fox observed, ‘if the cheese is tasty.’

Alleyn said that under the circumstances he felt Pender might proceed on the lines indicated and left him looking relieved.

They climbed the hotel steps, staggering against the gale, and entered The Boy-and-Lobster. It was now five minutes to eight.

Alleyn asked the reception clerk if he could find rooms for his three colleagues and learnt that the guests had dwindled to thirty. All incoming trains and buses had been met at Dunlowman and intending visitors told about the situation. Accommodation had been organized with various establishments over a distance of fifteen miles and, in view of the weather forecast and the closure of the Spring, most of the travellers had elected, as the clerk put it, to stay away. ‘We can be cut off,’ he said, ‘if it’s really bad. It doesn’t often happen but if this goes on, it might.’ The guests in residence had all come by car and were now at dinner.

Alleyn left the others to collect their suitcases and arranged to meet them in the dining-room. He went to his own room, effected a quick change and called on Miss Emily who was four doors away.

She was finishing her dinner. She sat bolt upright, peeling grapes. A flask of red wine was before her and a book was at her elbow with a knife laid across to keep it open. She was perfectly composed.