“My uncle is in difficult financial straits, Inspector. He was furious with Tony Summers because he had raised the mooring fees and my uncle lives on a boat. Also he is angry with me because I inherited my grandmother’s estate, not him. So why not kill two birds with one stone? He came to the house yesterday afternoon, on the pretext of wanting to see Tony, but left without seeing him. Actually saying he would see himself out. So it would not be hard to hide and wait in a place like this.” She paused, then added, “Whoever did this deed wished to pin it on me, didn’t they? Or else why not lurk somewhere in the estate and stab Tony as he went about his work? Why not hide the body in a remote part of the estate? Why not fling him into the river?”

“So you believe your uncle capable of killing, do you?”

“Absolutely. He always used to boast about how he killed Germans during the Great War. I think he was quite handy with a knife.”

The inspector remained silent for a while, examining Belinda. Then he said slowly, “The only thing against that is that there was one set of fingerprints on the knife, Miss Warburton-Stoke. And those fingerprints were yours.”

There was a long silence after this. Outside the wind had picked up and a branch was tapping against a window somewhere. The logs shifted in the fireplace. The tension became unbearable. I felt that I had to say something.

“Of course her fingerprints were on the knife,” I said. “She told you that she kicked it and then picked it up. She was holding it when I found her.”

“Holding it when you found her. Right.” He gave a little smirk of satisfaction. “Might the scream you heard not have been hers at all, but the poor man breathing his last as she plunged the dagger into him?”

“That is so silly,” Belinda said. “Do you think that I had a large ceremonial dagger handy in my room? Lying by my bed for self-defense just in case anyone wandered in?”

“There must have been other fingerprints on the knife,” I interjected.

“No others. Just this lady’s.”

I frowned. “No other fingerprints on a dagger that is at least a hundred years old? Isn’t that a little suspicious?”

“Not necessarily,” the inspector said. “The housekeeper tells me that the servants were instructed to dust and polish all the artifacts every week.”

“But surely one of them would have left a stray fingerprint as they hung it back on the wall?” I suggested.

“Unless they were instructed to hold the artifact with a cloth. I am sure some of these old things are priceless and have to be handled with care.”