‘I don’t agree with you, Padre,’ said Georgie. ‘To begin with, I’m sure Lucia didn’t think she was facing death and even if she did, she’d still have been terribly interested in life till she went phut.’

‘Thank God I live on a hill,’ exclaimed Major Benjy, thinking, as usual, of himself.

Mr Wyse held up his hand. As he was the host, it was only kind to give him a chance, for he had had none as yet. ‘Your pardon,’ he said, ‘if I may venture to suggest what may combine the ideas of our reverend friend and of Mr Pillson’ – he made them two bows – ‘I think Mrs Lucas felt she was facing death – who wouldn’t? – but she was of that vital quality which never gives up interest in life, until, in fact (which we trust with her is not the case), all is over. But like a true Christian, she was, as we all saw, employed in comforting the weak. She could not have been using her last moments, which we hope are nothing of the sort, better. And if there had been frictions, they arose only from the contact of two highly vitalised –’

‘She kissed Elizabeth too,’ cried Mrs Bartlett. ‘I saw her. She hasn’t done that for ages. Fancy!’

‘I want to get back to the kitchen,’ said Diva. ‘What could have taken Elizabeth to the kitchen? I’ve got a brilliant idea, though I don’t know what you’ll think of it. She knew Lucia was giving a Christmas tree to the choirboys, because I told her so yesterday –’

‘I wonder what’s happened to that,’ said the Padre. ‘If it wasn’t carried away by the flood, and I think we should have seen it go by, it might be dried.’

Diva, as usual when interrupted, had held her mouth open, and went straight on.

‘– and she knew the servants were out, because I’d told her that too, and she very likely wanted to see the Christmas tree. So I suggest that she went round the back way into the kitchen – that would be extremely like her, you know – in order to have a look at it, without asking a favour of –’

‘Well, I do call that clever,’ interrupted Georgie admiringly. ‘Go on. What happened next?’

Diva had not got further than that yet, but now a blinding brilliance illuminated her and she clapped her hands.

‘I see, I see,’ she cried. ‘In she went into the kitchen and while she was looking at it, Lucia came in too, and then the flood came in too. All three of them. That would explain what was behind her words, “Just wait till we come back.” She meant that she wanted to tell us that she’d found Elizabeth in her kitchen.’