“Stella’s motor,” I said to myself. But why had she hidden it here, unless she wanted to make a quick getaway? I searched the car but found nothing of interest in it, not even any identification or license in the glove box. Puzzled, I looked up to see a large antelope with impressive horns regarding me from a safe distance. When it snorted at me, I decided that discretion was the better part of valor and picked my way back to the road again, my stick clutched in my hand, at the ready. But no more wild animals appeared as I climbed the rest of the way up the hill and glimpsed the house standing on the bluff ahead of me. I confess I gave a sigh of relief. There was something strange and unnerving about this place, almost as if Mr. Goldman had created an illusion here where the rules of the rest of the world didn’t apply.

As I approached my cottage the door opened and Belinda came out. She was still dressed in her bathrobe and slippers and her hair was tousled from sleep. “Oh, Georgie. I’m rather glad to see you,” she said in her breathless voice. “I woke up and found myself completely alone. Well, that’s unusual enough to start with, isn’t it? But then when you didn’t come back I began to feel alarmed. I wondered if you’d all been spirited off or something.”

“We just went to get breakfast and then Darcy drove down to Los Angeles,” I said.

“Oh good. So all is well, then,” she said. “I hoped that letting Miss Brightwell go meant that they’d sorted things out.”

“What made you think they released Miss Brightwell?” I asked. “She was locked up in her room when I left her a few minutes ago and the sheriff was showing no signs of wanting to release her.”

“But I saw her come out of that other cottage a little while ago,” Belinda said. “I woke up, didn’t know where I was and lifted the curtain to see out. And there was Stella Brightwell coming out of that door over there and creeping down into the trees.”