As we came close to the lake, a patch of blue sky appeared overhead. A few minutes later, the sun came out and the lake turned from iron gray to blue, with white swans reflected in its now-calm surface. Then whole scene turned from dreary to sparkling. Darcy’s hand was warm and reassuring in mine, and it suddenly felt as if all would be right with the world after all. It’s amazing how little I actually needed to make me happy.

We left the lake and followed the muddy footpath down the hill. Numerous footprints of big boots indicated that policemen had been and gone again. At last we came into the glen, which looked quite charming in the new sunlight. The stream had receded again, and flowed merrily over its rocks. It was hardly possible to make out where the body had lain.

“You see, I told you there was no point in our coming here,” Darcy said. “Nothing worth seeing, is there?”

I studied the ground. It had been churned up by numerous feet but other than that one would never have known that a body had lain there an hour or so previously. Frankly I didn’t know what I was looking for.

“Strange,” Darcy said. “You’d have thought there would still be a bloodstain or two. Or perhaps the rain was hard enough to have washed them all away.”

“That was it!” I exclaimed, turning to face him. “That’s one of the things I thought was strange. He was stabbed with that enormous knife but there was almost no blood. He was wearing a white shirt too. When I’ve seen someone stabbed before, the blood completely soaked his shirts.”

“Who have you seen stabbed?” Darcy asked suspiciously.

“That poor chap called Sydney when I had that visiting princess with me.”

Darcy shook his head. “I wonder how many other men have future wives who mention casually the number of people they have seen stabbed. You won’t be bringing that up as a topic of conversation at our future dinner parties, will you?”

“I can’t help it if I’ve happened to come across a few dead bodies in my life. It’s not as if I enjoy it, or go looking for bodies,” I said. “They just seem to find me.”

“We should probably warn our guests when they come to stay at our future house. I can see it now: please do come and stay, if you don’t mind that people seem to die in horrible ways when they are around Georgiana.”