“Sleeping off a hangover, I suspect. We had a rather wild party here last night. You go through to the breakfast room and I’d better change.”

I went upstairs to find Queenie standing in my room with a tea tray.

“The one time I remember to take you up your tea, you’re not blooming well there,” she said and plonked it down on the side table.

For once I wasn’t in a mood to reprimand her.

“Do you want me to run you a bath?” she asked as if this might be a huge imposition.

“No time for a bath,” I said. “My grandfather has just arrived. Help me into the new linen suit.”

A few minutes later, smartly dressed for company, I went downstairs to join them. I found that Vera was also at the table. There was no sign of Mummy, but plenty of evidence of the previous night’s party—empty glasses and full ashtrays all over the terrace, streamers, masks. The local women were bustling about clearing up and sweeping, chattering to each other in their shrill voices.

“Now, tell them everything,” Coco said. “About the necklace and the murder. Every detail.”

I tried to tell the whole thing logically. They listened, asking the occasional question.

“I don’t know about you, old friend,” Germain said to my grandfather, “but when two crimes occur so soon in an otherwise peaceful area, I have to wonder whether there is a connection between them. This stolen necklace—was the murder of the neighbor also during an attempted robbery? You say that Sir Toby went out on his yacht, therefore the thief would not expect to find him at home. The thief is startled and reacts by hitting Sir Toby over the head.”

“The only thing against that is that there was no sign of any disturbance in the house,” I said. “And Sir Toby’s servant and wife noticed nothing obvious missing. There were valuable objects all over the place. If Sir Toby was lying dead, why didn’t the thief help himself before he got away?”

As I said this I realized that I was using the pronoun “he” when the person seen slinking toward the house had been someone who looked like me. Not only that, I realized, someone who had taken the trouble to dress like me, to pin any crime on me, essentially. I explained this and the men listened.

“But a young woman like you—would she have the strength to kill a big man like Sir Toby?”

“If she caught him unawares,” I said. “What if he came home, changed into his bathing costume and went out for a swim? She was startled to see him so she grabbed a heavy object, crept up behind him and hit him over the head?”