It was a very definite statement for such a brief acquaintance, and Josephine wondered if the two women had confided in each other the night before, or if happiness was simply the accepted thing to assume after a death; somehow, she couldn’t imagine the same formality being extended to the Lancasters if one of them had been murdered in the night. ‘She’s in shock,’ Marta said, ‘and it’s hard to know how much of what’s happened has really registered yet. Hilaria has taken her to her room to lie down.’

‘I’ll call in on her later, if that’s allowed.’ Josephine noticed Gerald Lancaster glance sharply at his wife, but he said nothing. He, too, was pale and heavy-eyed from the excesses of the night before, and she could only speculate as to what had gone on after the couple retired to their room.

Marlene got up again and poured the last of the coffee into her cup, then rang the bell for more. ‘I think I must have been the last person to see the Reverend Hartley alive,’ she said, drawing the focus of the gathering as deftly and surely as she did a camera’s. ‘He came to my room last night. We had a drink, and we talked.’

‘Why?’ Barbara Penhaligon asked, and there was a childish note of petulance in her voice, as if she resented the fact that Marlene seemed on the verge of taking the starring role in another, far more important, drama.

‘Because I invited him.’ Barbara repeated her question, this time even more vehemently, and in the pause that followed, Josephine realised that she had been completely wrong about the voice she had heard in Marlene’s room; no wonder Archie had ignored her innuendo. ‘I met him in the corridor 190last night on my way to bed,’ the actress said. ‘He was upset – crying, actually – and I thought it was because of the talk of war at dinner.’ She looked pointedly at Barbara. ‘He was chaplain at a clearing station near the Somme during the war, and it cannot be easy to live with those memories.’

‘And was that the reason?’ Josephine asked, conscious of how intently they were all awaiting the answer.

‘No, it wasn’t. It was because of his wife. He had been talking to her about their wedding, but she couldn’t remember it. She pretended to, but he could see in her eyes that it was lost to her. It was the first time that had happened, and he knew it was going to get worse, because he had seen it all before. He couldn’t bear the thought of losing the only person who shared his most intimate memories. Happiness was like guilt, he said; it only existed if someone could bear witness to it.’

There was a long silence in the room as everyone considered the vicar’s words and what their significance might be. ‘Mrs Hartley told us that her husband had gone to talk to someone,’ Marta said eventually. ‘Do you think he meant you?’