“If you would take this letter to Mr. Cartwright, perhaps he’ll be able to fit us in,” Lindsay replied nonchalantly, handing over the envelope containing Pamela Overton’s letter. “We’ll wait and see, shall we?”

The young man turned to enter and Lidsay nipped smartly into the porch behind him. Cordelia, surprised by this maneuver, took a moment to follow her. The inner door to the hallway was closed neatly in their faces by the young man, and Lindsay turned to Cordelia, saying, “Easy when you know how, isn’t it?”

Cordelia muttered, “Brazen hussy!” They stood in an awkward silence till the young man reappeared a few moments later at the inner door. “He can give you a quarter of an hour. He’s got to leave after that for an important meeting in Matlock.”

“Talk about delusions of grandeur,” Lindsay muttered to Cordelia, who struggled to swallow a nervous giggle as their footsteps clattered on the polished parquet of the wide hall in the wake of the young man. Cordelia sized up the stained pine doors and skirting board, the Victorian-style wallpaper dotted with framed photographs of sailing ships and nineteenth-century harbors, and the stripped pine church pew and pine chests that were the only furniture in the hall. The cushion on the pew matched the wallpaper. “Straight from the pages of a design catalog,” she remarked. At the end of the hall, the young man waited by a door. As they reached him, he opened it and gestured them to enter.

The room was painted white. On the walls were two calendars and three year-planners. The floor was covered with carpet tiles and the furniture comprised equally functional office equipment. There were two metal desks, filing cabinets the length of one wall, a large computer terminal with printer attached, and, in the bay window, a draftsman’s angled desk with a battery of spotlights above it.

At the larger of the two desks, a man was working. As her eyes swung round to him, Lindsay felt as though she’d been punched in the chest. She recognized the man she had last seen storming through the music department on the afternoon of the murder. She rapidly revised the outline of what she was going to ask him.

He had not looked up when they entered but continued to write notes on a large plan laid out on his desk top. It was Cordelia’s first sight of Cartwright and she was impressed in spite of herself. He was in his middle forties, a big man, at least six feet tall. His torso looked solid without being flabby and his hands were the strong tools of a man used to strenuous physical work. His dark hair was thinning and graying at the temples, and his skin was weathered and lined. When he finally looked up, his eyes were surprisingly dull and tired.