“But the will never was questioned, was it? And why should Candace Westhall feel it necessary to fly to Toronto and see Grace Holmes in person? The financial arrangements didn’t need a visit and the other information about the date of death could be given by telephone. And why did she need it? She knew that the Reverend Matheson had seen her father two days before he died. The evidence of Matheson and his sister would be enough.”

“You’re suggesting that the ten thousand pounds was a payment for this letter?”

Dalgliesh said, “For the last paragraph in the letter. I think it possible that Candace Westhall wanted to ensure that there would be no risk of disclosure from the only living witness to her father’s will. Grace Holmes had helped nurse Peregrine Westhall and knew what his daughter had endured at his hands. I think she would be happy to see justice done in the end to Candace and Marcus. And, of course, she did take the ten thousand pounds. And what was she asked to do? Merely to say she had witnessed a handwritten will and couldn’t remember on what date. Do you think for a moment that she will ever be persuaded to change her story, to say more than that? And she didn’t witness the previous will. She would know nothing about the injustice to Robin Boyton. She could probably convince herself that she was speaking the truth.”

For nearly a minute they sat in silence; then Dalgliesh said, “If I asked you whether Candace Westhall on that last visit to you discussed the truth about her father’s will, would you answer me?”

“No, and I don’t suppose you’d expect me to. That’s why you won’t ask. But I can tell you this, Commander. She was not a woman to burden me with more than I needed to know. She wanted me to have Grace Holmes’s letter, but that was the least important part of the visit. She told me that our daughter had died, and how. We had unfinished business. There were things both of us needed to say. I would like to think that when she left me much of the bitterness of the last twenty-five years had seeped away, but that would be a romantic sophism. We had done each other too much damage. I think she died happier because she knew she could trust me. That was all there was between us and all there had ever been, not love but trust.”

But Dalgliesh had one last question. He asked, “When I telephoned and you agreed to meet me, did you tell Candace Westhall that I was coming?”