“Yes, I walked. It’s not far—only a couple of miles across the moors. I couldn’t sleep, so I thought that if I came up here and wandered round on my own in the silence of night I might get some answers.”

“And did you, you tantalizing pig?” Cordelia appealed.

Lindsay leaned back on the pillows and smirked. “You really want to know?”

Cordelia jumped on the bed and grabbed her shoulders in affectionate annoyance. “Of course I want to know!”

“I’ve remembered what it was I had forgotten.”

There was a pause. When Cordelia spoke it was almost a whisper, as if she did not want to tempt fate. “And it’s important? As important as you thought it might be?”

“I think so. If I’m right, it shows how the murderer committed the crime without being spotted in the music department. And it also narrows the field down considerably. But we’ll have to talk to Chris Jackson this morning to see if my theory will hold water.”

“Well then, tell me; don’t keep me guessing!”

“Okay. But only after you’ve made me a cup of coffee.”

“Oh, Lindsay Gordon, I could strangle you,” yelled Cordelia as they tussled on the bed. Finally she sat back and declared, “All right. If coffee is your price, I’ll pay. Besides, I could do with a cup myself.” She slipped through to the kitchen and set the percolator going. Then she returned to the bedroom.

“I’ve done my bit,” she reported. “Now, while we’re waiting, you can tell me what it is you’ve remembered. Who did you see or hear doing or saying what? If you see what I mean.”

“Nobody. It’s not quite that simple. On Saturday afternoon, after the play and before the book auction, I sat at the very front of the hall, at the side, and stared out of the window in between jotting down some notes. Those windows look down on the kitchen roof and the woods. The curtains were drawn in the evening by the time the concert began. But at that time, it wasn’t quite dusk, so no one had got round to shutting out the view. I could see the flat roof of the kitchen. I noticed the pots of conifers. And I noticed that strong iron railing going all round the roof.

“Later, after Lorna had been murdered, I was going back from the music room to the hall. The two windows in the corridor didn’t have curtains at them, so again I could look out and see the kitchen roof, though at an angle because it doesn’t come along as far as the music department. I was thinking about what Pamela Overton had said, and about what I’d just seen, so I was looking without really noticing anything.”