“Right you are, then.” He nodded with satisfaction. “I’ll go and telephone the inspector. He’ll be right shirty at being woken at this time of night, but needs must, as they say.”

“This way, Constable,” Mrs. Mannering said and led him down the stairs to the telephone in the foyer.

I lingered on the balcony. I heard him talking to the operator, then a long pause and then he said, “Sorry to trouble you, sir. . . . Yes, I do know what time it is. . . . Yes, I know it’s the middle of the night and you were asleep . . . but it’s rather urgent that you come here as soon as possible because I’m not sure what to do next. No, it’s not a fight outside the pub, it’s a young man lying naked and dead on a bed. At that big house called Trewoma. Stabbed through the heart, sir. A clear case of murder.” There was another pause, then he added, “No, sir, it’s not a prank, I promise you. It’s a real honest-to-goodness murder. . . . The murderer? Yes, I do have an idea. I have her apprehended and under guard. Why, thank you, sir. I just do my best.”

He looked quite satisfied as he hung the telephone receiver back on its cradle. “He’ll be coming out as soon as he gets dressed,” he said. “It shouldn’t take him more than half an hour.”

I went back to Belinda. She was sitting up in bed, hugging her knees to herself.

“The inspector is on his way,” I said. “Why don’t you try to get some sleep?”

“How can I possibly sleep, Georgie? I’m absolutely terrified. And the more I think about it, the more I am sure that Uncle Francis did it. Because if not he, then who could it be? It must be someone with a grudge against me as well as against Tony.”

I thought about this. “Rose would be the most likely suspect,” I said. “She told us today that she was scared Tony was planning to kill her. So why not kill him first? But I don’t know what she could have against you, unless he was now interested in you and thought that you might also be returning that interest.”

“She might have seen him going into my room earlier,” Belinda said. “And come to the wrong conclusion.”

“It would have been the right conclusion if you hadn’t sent him packing,” I said. “But the trouble with that theory is that she was down in the kitchen making cocoa,” I pointed out. “We all saw her going that way, then when you cried out and we came running, she was still at the bottom of the stairs with the cup in her hand.”