The wheels were now turning in my head. A servant who was related to the dead boy—but then it was Jonquil who ran him over, years ago, not Tony. But Mrs. Mannering . . . she had obviously worshipped Jonquil. If she suspected, as Rose did, that Tony had pushed Jonquil off the cliff, might she have been waiting for the perfect moment to take revenge? But why Belinda? Belinda had nothing to do with Jonquil or the house. And Mrs. Mannering didn’t like Rose much. Why not implicate her? I sighed again. Nothing made any sense. But at least I had a slim lead to go on. Someone in the neighborhood who hated Tony or hated Trewoma for some reason and had a relative working at the house now. A relative who could take the dagger and signal for the right moment to climb into the room. It was far-fetched but better than nothing.

“I’d better get going, then.” Jago interrupted my train of thought. “I’ll keep my eyes and ears open, just in case. And when this lot leave again, I’ll try to see Belinda. I don’t like the thought of her shut up like that.”

He opened the door of the Rolls-Royce, climbed in and set off at a great pace, tires spewing up loose gravel. I decided to do a little sleuthing right away. I went into the post office.

“Oh, it’s you, miss,” the postmistress said, eyeing me with interest. “Staying at Trewoma, so we’ve heard. What’s it all about with the police, then? Constable Hood called out in the night and Dan Struthers says he saw a big police car going past—driving real fast, he was, and he turned into Trewoma, so we’re reckoning something’s wrong.”

“You’re going to find out soon enough,” I said. “I expect it will be in the newspapers. Tony Summers has been killed.”

“Well, I never!” She put a hand to her ample bosom. “I can’t say he was the most popular of men around here—seeing as how he was trying to modernize everything and make folks pay up for mooring their boats and all—but who would have wanted to kill him? Poor Mrs. Summers. Just when she thought she’d landed nicely in clover, she’s a widow with a big house to run.”

“I was just wondering about the servants,” I said.

“The servants?” She was frowning.

“Are they all from these parts? I wondered if any of them might have a grudge or perhaps have a family member with a grudge against Mr. Summers.”