It struck her that the house was extraordinarily quiet. This impression deepened as she climbed the stairs. She stood for a moment on the top landing, listening. As in all moments of quietude, undercurrents of sound, generally unheard, became disconcertingly audible. The day had been hot and the old wooden house relaxed with stealthy sighs or sudden cracks. Flossie’s room was opposite the stairhead. Ursula, stock-still on the landing, listened intently for any movement in the room. There was none. She moved nearer to the door and stooping down could just see the printed legend. Flossie was adamant about obedience to this notice, but Ursula paused while the inane couplet which she couldn’t read jigged through her memory:

Please don’t knock upon my door,

The only answer is a snore.

Auntie Flossie, she confessed, was a formidable snorer. Indeed it was mainly on this score that Uncle Arthur, an uneasy sleeper, had removed to an adjoining room. But on this night no energetic counterpoint of intake and expulsion sounded from behind the closed door. Ursula waited in vain and a small trickle of apprehension dropped down her spine. She stole away to her own room and wrote a little note. ‘It’s found. Happy trip, darling. We’ll listen to you.’ When she came back and slid it under Flossie’s door the room beyond was still quite silent.

Ursula returned to the dining-room. She said the light dazzled her eyes after the dark landing. She stood in the doorway and peered at the group round the table, ‘It’s odd, isn’t it, how, for no particular reason, something you see will stick in your memory? I mean there was no particular significance about my going back to the dining-room. I didn’t know then. Terry stood behind Uncle Arthur’s chair. Fabian was lighting a cigarette and I remember feeling worried about him—’ Ursula paused unaccountably. ‘I thought he’d been overdoing things a bit,’ she said. ‘Douglas was sitting on the table with his back towards me. They all turned their heads as I came in. Of course they were just wondering if I’d given her the diamond clip but it seems to me now that they asked me where she was. And, really, I answered as if they had done so. I said, “She’s in her room. She’s asleep!” ’

‘Did it strike you as odd that she’d made no inquiries about the clip?’ Alleyn asked.

‘Not very odd. It was her way, to organize things and then leave them, knowing they’d be done. She was rather wonderful like that. She never nagged.’

‘There’s no need to nag if you’re an efficient dictator,’ Fabian pointed out. ‘I’ll admit her efficiency.’

‘Masculine jealousy,’ said Ursula, without malice, and he grinned and said, ‘Perhaps.’

Ursula waited for a moment and then continued her narrative.