Such a waste, I found myself thinking. Tony Summers, who clearly loved life, lying there dead. And who could possibly benefit? Rose had lost a husband and would have no one to run the estate. She might well sell up and then Mrs. Mannering and the staff would be out of a job. Belinda’s uncle Francis did seem like the best bet. With Tony dead perhaps mooring rates would go back to their old level. I tiptoed over to the window and looked down. There was a sturdy creeper growing up the wall. Had someone dared to climb in or out during last night’s storm? That indicated a very foolhardy and reckless person.

I glanced out. There was a flower bed immediately below the window, then an area of gravel with lawns leading to a kitchen garden on one side and the more wooded part of the estate. Somewhere among those woods was the strange little dell that led down to the beach. I thought how easy it would be for someone to move around hidden on this estate, apart from the last part of crossing the lawn. But on a blustery night who would have looked out of a window?

It was still raining and I stepped back from the window before I got too wet. There was a puddle on the parquet floor. Mrs. Mannering wouldn’t be too pleased about that! I moved quickly over to the bed and went through the bedclothes on the floor. A top sheet, two blankets and an eiderdown. No dressing gown. If Tony had come to the room wearing his robe, then it wasn’t anywhere to be seen. I tried to picture him sprinting down the hall with wet hair, stark naked. It seemed unlikely, to say the least.

An idea was beginning to form in my head. I checked the floor and walls around the bed. There was no trace of blood that I could see on the light rug, apart from where the knife had fallen and Belinda had picked it up. That was strange. Surely Tony couldn’t have been stabbed while he was lying down? If he had been on the bed, waiting for Belinda, and someone else had come into the room, wouldn’t he have jumped up, wrestled the intruder for the knife? It was just possible that he had fallen asleep. He had, after all, consumed quite a large amount of alcohol, as had we all. But if he had been awake, how had the intruder managed to stab him without getting any blood spatters anywhere in the room? I had seen stabbings before (yes, I know, I have led a rather strange life in recent years) and they were quite messy.