“Nine okay? Harry should have surfaced by then. He’ll be your friend for life after this, Lindsay. And so will I, come to that.”

“Don’t fall at my feet with gratitude till I’ve actually got Harry’s papers back,” Lindsay warned. “It might not be entirely straightforward, I shouldn’t have to tell you that. Tell Harry it might cost him to get his stuff back.”

“He won’t quibble, don’t worry about that. He’ll think it’s cheap at the price to preserve his respectability,” Rosalind said bitterly. “See you tomorrow morning.”

Lindsay put down the phone and started preparing for the evening’s dinner party. Plenty of good food and good wine to relax them and put them at their ease, she had decided. She’d worked the menu out and stopped to do the shopping on the way back from her sticky encounter with Claire, and she surveyed her purchases with satisfaction. She wondered if she could claim her outlay back from Claire as a legitimate business expense. Maybe she should have broached the subject before she accused Claire of murder, Lindsay thought ironically.

First, she put some water on to boil, then quartered the two pheasants she had bought from the game butcher. There was a glut of pheasants this year, they’d never be cheaper, he had informed her as he’d talked her into buying the brace. She tipped the pheasants into the boiling water, then added carrots, onions, and spices. She left it to simmer while she chopped vegetables ready for the soup she was planning as a starter.

Once the pheasant was cooked, Lindsay stripped the flesh from the bones and set about assembling the complicated dish of bastilla: layers of phyllo pastry, pheasant, slivered almonds, and egg custard. After half an hour’s work, she looked with satisfaction at the finished pastry parcel, all ready to be popped in the oven to cook. The soup was also bubbling merrily. For dessert, she’d bought some Italian ice cream which she planned to serve with a sauce of puréed fruit from the rumtopf Sophie prepared every year with 160 proof Austrian rum. If they hadn’t drunk enough wine to loosen their tongues, she’d get them pissed on the pudding.

By six, everything was ready, and Lindsay poured herself a glass of wine on her way to the bath. Sophie arrived from work just as Lindsay was toweling herself dry. She looked stunning in a scarlet and cream leisure suit. “Doctors never looked like this when I was young,” Lindsay commented as Sophie pulled her into her arms and kissed her heartily.

“Probably just as well! How’s my favorite detective today? Did Barry Ostler eat you alive?” she asked.

“He was just like the Red Queen,” Lindsay replied. “Wanted me to believe six impossible things before breakfast.”

“But did you get Harry’s papers back?”