“Ah, but of course.” The diminutive man turned to the newcomer. “Belloc has not fully introduced himself. You see, although you may think that he is merely the quiet man who drinks his coffee in the drawing room and—”

“He’s a detective,” shouted Sir Richard. “Quite a famous private detective and, if I may add, a rather overrated one.”

“And he”—Belloc rounded on his accuser—”is a renowned meddler who at all costs must be kept away from this case.”

Sir Richard seemed genuinely taken aback. “Now steady on.”

“You deserved that one, Dicky dear.” This was the aunt. “You did insist on provoking the little man.”

“Belloc is not a little man,” Belloc protested.

“In my experience,”—Sir Richard’s aunt turned an impassive gaze on the detective—”large men seldom feel the need to refer to themselves in the third person.”

Liza was suddenly aware of an absence at her side as Hanna stepped forward to join the free-for-all. “Just a wacky, out-there suggestion somebody might want to jump on. Could we, maybe, call the police?”

“Can’t,” said a voice from across the courtyard. There was a murmuring amongst the guests as a man came forward, and Liza recognised Mr Burgh, the hotel manager. “Mobiles won’t work, landline was taken out in the storm, we don’t have the internet, and the roads are a death trap until the snow clears.”

“Sorry.” Hanna did not sound happy. Not that she’d sounded especially happy in a long while, but now she sounded specifically not happy rather than sort of generally dissatisfied on account of her marriage collapsing. “Are you saying we’re trapped in a hotel with a dead body and a killer on the loose?”

“Mon dieu! It is as Belloc feared.” Before anybody could ask him what, specifically he had feared or tell him that they didn’t give a damn either way, Belloc went on to elaborate. “Mes amis, you should know that it is not by accident that Belloc has come to this place at this time.”

Sir Richard had by now pulled fully free of the crowd and his aunt, coming to stand face to face with the detective. “Nobody thought it was, you diminutive continental glory-hound.”

“And nobody asked your opinion, you etiolated Saxon windbag.”

Hanna turned a pleading look down the lens of Liza’s phone. “Can I just remind everybody that we’re standing in front of a dead man while two complete randoms fight over which of them gets to play at being C. Auguste Dupin?”