Dalgliesh said, “But surely the idea was fantastic, appropriate to an ingenious novel but not to the situation here. Can he possibly have believed there was truth in it?”

“Oh, he believed all right. In fact, there were a number of circumstances which could be said to add credibility to the fantasy. The idea wasn’t as ridiculous as it sounds. I don’t think we could have kept the deception going for long, but for a few days or a week, maybe two, it would have been perfectly possible. My father was an extremely difficult patient who hated illness, resisted sympathy and was adamant that he wanted no visitors. I looked after him with the help of a retired nurse, who is now living in Canada, and an elderly maid who died just over a year ago. The day after Robin left, I had a phone call from Dr. Stenhouse, the GP who looked after my father. Robin had visited him with some specious excuse and tried to find out how long my father had been dead before the doctor was called in. The doctor was never a patient man and in retirement even less tolerant of fools than he was when in practice, and I can well imagine the response Robin got for his impertinence. Dr. Stenhouse said that he answered no questions about patients when they were alive, nor did he when they were dead. I imagine Robin came away convinced that the old doctor, if not senile when he signed the death certificate, had been either duped or was complicit. He probably assumed that we’d bribed the two helpers—Grace Holmes, the elderly nurse who emigrated to Canada, and the maid, Elizabeth Barnes, who’s since died.