“Incompetent louts?” the sheriff demanded. “You counted on us being really stupid, did you? Or you’d have found a better hiding place for this.”

There was a scream. Darcy was up the stairs in an instant. So were Craig and Ronnie, followed closely by me. We clustered at the doorway of a bedroom that would have been right at home in Castle Rannoch—huge four-poster bed, tapestries on the walls, old chests, candlesticks . . . and one candlestick, more beautiful than the rest, lying in the middle of Stella’s bed.

Chapter 24

Stella was standing there, her mouth open, pointing at it. “How did it get there?” she demanded.

“That’s what we’d like to know, Miss Brightwell,” the sheriff said.

“Someone must have put it there,” Stella said, sounding angry now. “Someone is trying to frame me.”

“Oh yeah?” The sheriff was still gloating. “Or maybe you killed your lover and decided to take one of the candlesticks as a little souvenir. Only the body was found quicker than you’d hoped and you had nowhere to hide it properly. So your bed seemed a fairly safe place—unless you decided to invite someone else to join you tonight.”

“How dare you!” Stella said. “In case you’ve forgotten, I am a famous actress. I could afford to buy my own candlestick if I wanted one. If I’d asked Cy for it, he’d have probably given it to me as a present. He adored me. I adored him. And if that old cow had given him the divorce he wanted, we’d have been married by now.”

“But she didn’t, did she?” the sheriff said. “Perhaps you just found out he never planned to divorce his wife. Perhaps he was about to ditch you and move on to someone new and you didn’t like that.”

“So I hit him over the head with his own candlestick?” she snapped. “Don’t be ridiculous. I abhor violence, Sheriff.”

“We’ll find out soon enough, Miss Brightwell,” he said. “When my man has had a good look at that fingerprint. If I were you I’d pack some clothes. You may be on your way to jail before the night is over.”

“I bet she was the one who did this,” Stella said, her voice now cracking with emotion. “That cow, his wife. She always hated me, even though she didn’t want Cy for herself. What’s the betting she bashed his head in and then planted the candlestick on me. Killing two birds with one stone. How very neat. You want to question her more fully, Sheriff. Find out if she’s taken out a large life insurance policy on her husband recently.”