He laughed. “Too cold and damp, I suspect. I prefer my wicked ways in soft, feather beds.” His grip on my hand tightened as he helped me up the rocky path to the folly.

“As I said, cold and damp,” he exclaimed, looking around. It was built like a Greek temple with one circular room, surrounded by columns and with a back wall of white marble. Ivy clung to some of the columns and draped across the back wall. The view must have been enchanting on a bright, sunny day but the clouds were now gathering again, and they held the promise of rain. The place smelled of rotting leaves, mildew and decay.

“I was going to make the most of the opportunity and kiss you at leisure,” Darcy said, “but now that we’re here, I’m not keen to stay. Depressing sort of place, isn’t it?”

I nodded. “We’ll be missed anyway.” I looked around, noticing the tall silhouette of the house looming above us. “We should probably get back.”

“Good view from here on a nice day,” Darcy said. “You can see right across the valley.”

“Also the footpath down to the lane,” I commented, as I toyed with this idea. “And through the glen. In fact, if someone wanted to lie in wait and watch, this would be a good spot.”

“Who knew that Cedric was going to post a letter?” Darcy asked. “Surely that would have been a spur-of-the-moment decision. He went to his study, wrote the letter and then decided to post it himself. Who would have known about that? None of the family was even awake at that time.”

“Except Jack,” I said.

Darcy nodded. “Except Jack,” he repeated. “It really doesn’t look good for him, does it?”

“And also Sissy,” I added. “She was already dressed at seven thirty.”

“But she’s hardly mobile enough to follow her uncle to the glen and stab him, having first recovered Jack’s knife.”

“True,” I said. “Irene was drugged, and the old ladies are surely too frail to follow and stab anybody. That only leaves the Starlings.”

“And they’d hardly want to stab Cedric, would they?”

“Which brings us back to the ex-footman William. He does seem the most likely suspect now, doesn’t he? He could easily have made his way here through the wooded part of the estate then watched for Cedric to come into the glen.”

Darcy was leaning against the wall as we spoke. Suddenly he spun around to face the wall. “Listen,” he said, and knocked on the marble. “It’s hollow.” He examined the wall, pulled back the ivy and turned to me. “This has been pulled away recently. See how it’s come off the wall here?”

“What for?” I asked.

“My hunch is that”—he felt around in the ivy— “. . . aha. See? I was right.” He lifted a brass ring and pushed open a door in the wall.