“All right. Hop in.” Darcy opened a door for me and then went around to climb in beside me. The fog thickened as we drove down the hill, swirling in wisps across the road as if it were a live entity. Also I don’t think I had quite taken in how far it was. I began to have serious second thoughts about this enterprise, but I was too proud to ask Darcy to turn around and drive me back to the house. I could always have the gatekeeper telephone to send one of the men down for me, I decided. We came at last to the fence and beside it a small building—square, unadorned, whitewashed with a Spanish tile roof. Darcy stopped the car as the gate swung slowly open. And I got out.

“Bye-bye,” I said. “Good luck.”

“Same to you, and don’t do anything silly while I’m away,” he said. “No risks, understand?”

“Yes, dear,” I replied and he laughed. Then I closed the motorcar door, Darcy waved and drove off into the fog. The gate swung shut again. I stood looking up at it. Like the fence on either side it was about ten feet high and was topped with lethal-looking barbed wire. What’s more, it fitted snugly against the metal posts so that there was no way to slip through the gap. And eyes were already upon me. I turned to see a dark-skinned man and one of the sheriff’s deputies coming toward me.

“Can we help you, miss?” the deputy asked.

“I just rode down with Mr. O’Mara to keep him company and now I’m going to walk back to the house,” I said. “I hate being cooped up for too long. And I wanted to see the fence for myself. It’s quite formidable, isn’t it?”

“Don’t see nobody getting in or out over this fence,” the other man said.

“You must be Jimmy, the gatekeeper,” I said. “I’ve heard about you.”

“Only good, I hope,” he said, and smiled, making a grim face suddenly friendly.

“They said the gate can only be opened from inside your little house, so presumably you know exactly who comes in and out.”

“Of course I do,” he said. “I have to log them in in my book, don’t I?”

“And I suppose that nobody has shown up recently whom you weren’t expecting?”

“Nobody at all. Francisco came in with supplies two days ago, then yesterday it was just you people with Mr. Goldman. Three cars all following and then Miss Brightwell a bit later.”

“Wait a second,” I said. “Miss Brightwell was with us. She was in Mr. Goldman’s car, I’m sure.”

“No, miss. She came on her own, a half hour or so after the rest of you in her own little convertible.”

“Are you sure?”