“No, my lady. Someone’s just seen the monster,” a young boy said. I recognized him as the son of one of our estate workers.

“Seen the monster? What rubbish. Who saw it?”

“Ellie Cameron,” he said, pointing to a slightly older girl, now standing gripping the arm of a friend.

“What’s this about a monster, Ellie?” I asked.

She dropped a hasty curtsy. “I saw it, I really did, my lady. I was watching yon boat and then these strange waves started and I thought it was just, you know, the wake and the wind to begin with, but then I saw this monstrous head come out above the wave, and I screamed.”

“A monstrous head?” I smiled. “I think you’ve a good imagination, Ellie.”

“Och no, your ladyship. I know what I saw. A great big whitish thing it was, in the middle of the lake.”

“Well, there’s nothing there now,” I said. “See, it’s quite calm.”

The boat crew were climbing onto the dock, when suddenly someone shouted, “Look there! What’s that?”

Bubbles were rising from the black water. Then something broke the surface—something large and white. Someone screamed. Then someone else shouted, “It’s a body!”

The boat’s crew scrambled down into the boat again and were in the process of starting the engine when someone shouted, “Don’t worry. I’ll get it. Stay where you are.”

I knew that voice. It was Darcy, the last person I expected to see here. I spotted him just in time to watch him strip off his jacket and dive from the dock, swimming out to the body with masterful strokes. We watched as he grabbed hold of a leg and then towed it in to shore.

“Stand back, please,” he said, breathing heavily as he reached the shallows and stood up. “And somebody go and get the police.”

Several boys ran off while the rest of the crowd watched in fascinated silence to see what would happen next. It was a strange picture: Darcy standing in the shallows dripping wet, his shirt and trousers clinging to him like a second skin, looking so very much alive, while behind him, bobbing in the waves, was the bloated body of Godfrey Beverley, clad only in his undergarments.

At that moment Darcy spotted me. “Georgie.” I watched his eyes light up, much to my satisfaction. “Do you have a car here? Could you go home and telephone the police?”

“It’s all right, mister,” one of the boys said. “Freddie Mac-Lain is already off away on his bicycle to the public telephone box.”

“Do you want help with . . .” I couldn’t finish the sentence properly, staring with fascination at the bloated, bobbing thing in the water.

“Only in keeping everyone away,” he said. “I’m going to drag him up on dry land and then we’ll try not to disturb him until the police are here.”