“Yes,” Ramsay said. “ Mrs. Parry was murdered. She was stabbed. It probably happened quite close to where Dr. Laidlaw found her. The murderer must have covered her body with the leaves. He, or she, might have thought it would take longer for Mrs. Parry to be found. If Peter hadn’t gone to play on the swing, it would have taken several hours, I should guess.”

“She?” Judy cried. “You don’t think a woman would do anything like that?”

Ramsay looked at her seriously. “Why not?” he said. “ It wouldn’t have taken any great strength, you know. Especially if the murderer was known to Mrs. Parry.”

He realised he was trying to shock them and checked himself. It was time, for the moment, to stick to fact. He directed his questions to Max.

“When you found the body,” he said, “was the wrought-iron gate between the garden and the churchyard open or shut?”

“Shut,” Max said. “ Definitely shut. When I saw that she was dead, I noticed the vicar coming from the green towards the church. I shouted to him for help, though I don’t know exactly what I expected him to do. It was so windy that he didn’t hear me. It was like one of those nightmares, you know, when you shout and no sound comes out. In the end I ran to fetch him. The catch on the gate is very stiff and it seemed to take hours to get it open. He didn’t realise that anything was wrong and just stood on the path smiling.”

When Max stopped talking, there was another silence. Ramsay looked at them all again. They were shocked, of course, but still very self-composed. If anyone was lying, it would be hard to find out. Yet if anything the shut gate indicated that the murderer was a member of the household. Would someone who had just committed murder stop in his flight to fasten a difficult catch on the gate? Then he remembered Olive Kerr and made a mental note to ask which way she had come into the house.

“Now,” Ramsay said. “ Tell me what you’re all doing here and what happened last night.”

“We always stay with Alice on St. David’s night,” James Laidlaw said. “ It’s a family tradition. Her husband was Welsh, and she liked to entertain.”

“You arrived yesterday?”

James nodded. “Late in the afternoon.”

“Did your aunt seem concerned, worried?”

James hesitated. “ Not really. She was angry about a new development planned for the edge of the village, but that was nothing unusual. She was always fighting for some cause or another. I’m afraid she was rather a crank.”