The conservatory, entered from the billiards-room, had probably once been impressive. In the hot, slightly humid atmosphere Victorians doubtless admired dazzling displays of colour from the carefully cultivated plants, sheltered under the roof of glass supported by ornate cast-iron pillars. Even now, with many of the panes of glass missing or shattered, with the bare, rusty pillars standing like winter-struck trees and the earth within the ruin empty of plants and white with snow, Paul could visualize what it must once have looked like. Perhaps Arthur Howard had sat in here on a mellow summer evening, his cigar burning satisfactorily, putting the last touches to his plan to poison his wife and claim her insurance money. Or did he plan it over a quiet game of billiards in the adjoining room? Did he even do it at all? And as they left the billiards room prior to sealing it, Paul wondered: whether he did or did not kill her, did the insurance company pay up? After all he was found not guilty. No. The verdict was ‘not proven’. Would that have made any difference? He did not know.

He watched as Sergeant Smith and Harry Fletcher nailed wooden battens across the double doors between lounge and billiards-room, sealing off the rooms beyond.

They went upstairs. The rooms on that floor were searched and secured. Again the women stood on the landing where they could watch the stairs. Again nothing was found. Which left the attic floor. If the man was still in the house, thought Paul, he had to be upstairs. Man, or men, or . . .

Pollard, from the near end of the corridor between bedrooms three and four, called to the women.

‘You three stay where you are. Mr Wilson, Mr Fletcher, Sergeant Smith and Dr Bourne take the other staircase. Mr Mere­dith, Mr Swanson, Mr Hunt come with me.’

Paul found himself following the sergeant up the same narrow, steep flight he had climbed the previous night. Was it a memory of his terror then that squeezed his stomach now, or was it apprehension about meeting a possible lurker or lurkers at the top of the stairs?

Daylight was almost gone now. They had brought oil-lamps upstairs to the first floor gallery and left one burning in the hall below. But on the narrow stair it was so dark they required torches. Even when they reached the top, the pale dusk light filtering through the three dirty windows on the left of the long low passageway ahead did very little to illuminate it.

At the far end they saw the moving torch beams of the other group of searchers. Bourne got to the top of the stairs.

‘Sergeant, if you stay here in view of whoever’s at the other end, Wilson, Fletcher and I will do the tower-room.’

Smith nodded abruptly.