Fabian paused, looked at Alleyn out of the corners of his eyes, and inhaled a deep draught of smoke. ‘I had forgotten the classic exception,’ he said. ‘The last time she was seen alive, except by her murderer. She turned up some three weeks later at Messrs Riven Brothers’ wool store, baled up among the Mount Moon fleeces, poor thing. Did I forget to say we were shearing at the time of her disappearance? But of course you know all that.’

‘You followed her instructions about hunting for the clip?’

Fabian did not answer immediately. ‘With waning enthusiasm, on my part, at least,’ he said. ‘But, yes. We hunted for about forty-five minutes. Just as it was getting too dark to continue, the clip was found by Arthur, her husband, in a clump of zinnias that he had already ransacked a dozen times. Faint with our search, we returned to the house and the others drank whiskies and sodas in the dining-room. Unfortunately, I’m not allowed alcohol. Ursula Harme hurried away to return the clip to Flossie. The wool-shed was in darkness. She was not in her drawing-room or her study. When Ursula went up to her bedroom she was confronted by a poisonously arch little notice that Flossie was in the habit of hanging on her door handle when she didn’t want to be disturbed:

Please don’t knock upon the door,

The only answer is a snore.

‘Disgusted but not altogether surprised, Ursula stole away, but not before she had scribbled the good news on a piece of paper and slipped it under the door. She returned and told us what she had done. We went to our beds believing Flossie to be in hers. Shall I go on, sir?’

‘Please do.’

‘Flossie was to leave at the crack of dawn for the mail car. Thence by train and ferry she was to travel to the seat of government where normally she would arrive, full of kick and drive, the following morning. On the eve of these departures she always retired early, and woe betide the wretch who disturbed her.’

The track descended into a shingle-bed and the car splashed through a clear race of water. They had drawn nearer to the foothills and now the mountains themselves were close above them. Between desultory boulders and giant tussocks, coloured like torches in sunlight, patches of bare earth lay ruddy in the late afternoon light. In the distance, spires of lombardy poplars appeared above the naked curve of a hill and, beyond them, a twist of blue smoke.