“He has been hit on the head,” he said. It came out like “’Ee ’as been ’eet on the ’ead.” It was rather an unnecessary statement, since at close range it was obvious Sir Toby’s skull had been smashed at the back with considerable force, leaving a horrid matted mess of blood and hair. Lafite turned to his men. “Telephone to my department in Nice. Tell them we need a team of men and a vehicle to transport the body. In the meantime, begin to search the premises for the murder weapon. The criminal may have thrown it down the cliff or hidden it in the shrubbery.”

The two men began picking their way around the perimeter of the pool. Lafite turned his attention back to us.

“Who discovered the body?” he asked us in French.

“Lady Georgiana did,” Vera said, stepping between me and the inspector in an effort to protect me, I suppose. “She arrived home to find nobody here, looked over the edge of the terrace and saw the body in the pool. She was just coming up to get help when we arrived home and she showed us the body. We called the police.”

“Why did none of the servants discover their master was dead?” the inspector asked in slow, heavy-accented English as he turned to glare at Johnson, who took a step back. “They could not have attended to him very diligently.”

“There were no servants in the house,” Coco said. “Their master was supposed to be on his yacht today. This young man was running errands for Sir Toby in town, using Sir Toby’s car. The cook had been given the afternoon off.”

“This is very strange,” Lafite said, looking from one face to the next as if we were the ones concealing something from him. “Sir Toby sets out on a yacht and yet is found dead in his own swimming pool. If he came back, where is now the yacht?”

“I can answer that,” Johnson said. “I saw it moored in the old port in Nice.”

“Then how did this Sir Toby arrive here if his car is in Nice, his yacht is in Nice? If he had come from his yacht, would his launch not be at the jetty, when I see it clearly tied to the buoy out there?”

“He could have taken a taxi, I suppose,” Vera suggested.

“Certainly, but why? He owns a car. He owns a yacht.”

“I have no idea,” Vera said. “We know nothing of this man. We did not mix with him socially.”

“But he was an English milord, like the rest of you, was he not?”

“He was a baronet,” Vera said, “but he was essentially a self-made man.”

“A what?” Lafite asked. “He made himself? He is God?”

“I mean he came from the lower classes. His family made a fortune in industry. Therefore he was not one of us and never would be.”