“What did she say his name was?” Belinda turned to me. I was grinning.

“Yes,” I said. Then I had to chuckle. “That’s his name. Inspector Watt.” I suppose it was the tension but I couldn’t stop giggling. “And do you know what? If your grandmother had married him, she would have been a Watt-Knott.”

Even Belinda managed a smile at this. “It’s not funny, Georgie,” she said, fighting to look serious. “How can you laugh when the situation is so dire?”

“I thought we both needed cheering up,” I said. “And it’s good to see you smile.”

“Watt-Knott. You’re awful, you know that?” We were both still giggling like schoolgirls when the door opened and the inspector came in. “I’m glad to see you ladies are in good humor,” he said. “I am Detective Inspector Watt.” (I pressed my lips together so that I didn’t allow a chuckle to escape.) “Which one of you is Miss Warburton-Stoke?”

“I am,” Belinda said.

“And your name, miss?” He turned to me. He was a thin man probably in his forties, wearing a brown suit that matched his sandy mustache and thinning sandy hair. The sort of man one might never notice in a crowd, but I observed his eyes, as they fastened on me, were narrow and shrewd.

“I am Mrs. O’Mara,” I said, omitting that I was still to be addressed as “lady.”

“A friend of Mrs. Summers?”

“No, I’d never met either Mr. or Mrs. Summers before Wednesday. I am a friend of Miss Warburton-Stoke. We came down here to look at a property she had just inherited.”

“I see. I shall want you to give my man your full name and address, if you don’t mind. But I have some questions for this other young lady, in whose room I understand that the body was found.”

“That is correct,” Belinda said stiffly.

“Now, in your own words, if you don’t mind, perhaps you’d like to tell me how this unfortunate scene came about.” He pulled up a spindle-backed chair and sat directly opposite Belinda.

“There is almost nothing I can tell you,” Belinda said. “I went to have a bath, about ten thirty or thereabouts. I came back to my room and didn’t bother to turn on the light as I was already dressed for bed. My foot kicked something. I couldn’t think what I could have left on the floor. I bent to pick it up. It was sticky. I turned on the light and saw that it was a knife, covered in blood. Then I looked up and saw Tony Summers, lying on my bed as you have just found him. I believe I might have screamed.”

“You are telling me that the gentleman was already dead when you came into your room?”

“That’s exactly right.”