Almost immediately we heard the predicted weeping and wailing coming from the kitchen. Actually more of a cross between shrieks and eerie keening. I pitied Ronnie. Everybody gave him the unpleasant jobs and he just accepted them. I supposed that it was the lot of a secretary to be the general dogsbody. He returned soon after, empty-handed.

“I don’t think we’re likely to get more coffee in the immediate future,” he said. “I warned her that the police would want to talk to everybody and that just made the hysterics worse. She’s gone to find Francisco. I’d go and make the coffee myself but that stove is a temperamental monster and only Maria knows how to work it.”

“It is no matter. I do not need coffee,” Juan said. “I just want to return to my bed.”

“Well, you can’t do that until the sheriff gets here,” Darcy said. “I wonder when the men will come back from checking the fence?”

“It’s an enormous property,” Stella said. “I forget how many hundred acres. And a lot of it is rough terrain, steep hillsides, rocks, gullies. I doubt they’ll be able to check every inch of that fence.”

“Then the murderer could be long gone,” Craig said. I could see the relief in his face.

We all froze as the telephone rang. Ronnie went to answer it. “Yes, of course,” he said. Then he returned to us. “That was Jimmy at the gatehouse. He said he had the sheriff there and wanted to know if it was all right to let him in.”

“You see how conscientious he is about his job,” Stella said. “Nobody could have got past him at the gate. If they don’t find anything wrong at the fence we have to presume the murderer is still on the premises.”

“Or is one of us,” Charlie Chaplin said with obvious relish.

There was a gasp from around the room. “You’re joking, surely, Charlie,” Stella said. “Which of us would ever want to hit Cy over the head to steal a candlestick? It doesn’t make sense. If any of us was inclined to take the dratted thing all we’d had to do was sneak in sometime during the night, not go into the library when we knew Cy was still there.”

“I have to disagree with you there, Stella honey,” Craig said. “When Darcy and I left Cy he said he was going to put the candlesticks in the safe for the time being. Mrs. Goldman had asked him to do this since he didn’t have them properly insured yet.”