“That’s the least of my worries, to be perfectly blunt,” Lindsay replied with asperity.

“Fair enough, but it would be nice for Paddy to have a job to go back to if we ever manage to get her out of this,” said Cordelia. “So how do we place him on the scene?”

“I don’t know. If I could answer that we’d have a case to put to the police. Cartwright is certainly my favorite on balance. To be honest, I can’t really see any of the girls having done it.”

“Even though any one of them might have had motive, means, and probably foreknowledge of the opportunity? Be fair, you’re being sentimental again. Don’t forget that a growing-up process which includes incarceration in a place like this gives a certain hard edge to one’s character that most people don’t acquire till much later in life. I wouldn’t mind betting that young Caroline Barrington has enough guts to have carried out that murder if she had had a mind to,” Cordelia speculated.

“No, no, wrong timing again,” Lindsay parried.

“Caroline might have done it before her parents’ divorce, while there was still a chance of salvaging her family. But I can’t see her as the vindictive avenger of her father’s lost face and her mother’s lost pride.”

“Come on, Lindsay, you can’t use that as a valid argument against Caroline as a suspect,” complained Cordelia.

“Why not? Look, I believe that we all have the capability to commit at least one murder. Fortunately, the precise set of circumstances never actually come together for the overwhelming majority of us. And since I believe that, I find the only way I can deal with the problems of a crime like this is to look at the psychological probabilities. I simply don’t think that Caroline’s psychology—in so far as I’ve seen it at work—matches the facts of this crime. I rule out Caroline, just as I rule out Margaret.”

Cordelia pulled a face. “I’m still not utterly convinced,” she said.