‘Marcus set the scene for his own death – or rather the script for your new movie did, right, Anton?’ She pointed at the director who shrank back against the bookcase behind him. ‘The script perfectly details the first murder in the film, as performed at the dinner Isobel had so lovingly recreated for us that first night.’ Her gaze swung to Isobel, who stood firm under it. ‘All the way down to the tiny blue sugared violets with the coffees. The violets that never appeared in the book. Did they Libby?’

She turned to the scriptwriter, and Libby jumped with surprise at being asked to contribute to Caro’s monologue. ‘Uh, no. I think it’s sugared almonds, in the book, and the poison is actually in the coffee. But I thought the flowers would look better on film, and since aconite comes from a flower it, well, it made sense to me.’

‘Except somebody at dinner that night replaced one of those violets with a sugared monkshood flower from the Murder Spiral, placed on Marcus’s saucer beside the special tea everyone knew he drank.’

Pacing up and down the narrow space in front of the desk, her hands clasped behind her back, Caro held their attention. It was good that everyone at Aldermere that weekend was well versed in the way of murder mystery novels. Regardless of how these things were solved in the real world, no one questioned Caro’s – or Dahlia’s – right to conduct her own investigation.

Although, Rosalind had a feeling that might change when they got to the accusation part.

‘And so the murder happened, exactly as it did in the script. And while the police ascribed Marcus’s death to his heart condition, we all suspected differently, didn’t we? I questioned all of you, with a little help from my friends – some of you, so subtly you might not have noticed we were doing it.’

There were a few sceptical looks. Caro ignored them, and Rosalind commanded her lips not to smile.

‘I learned about Anton’s attempts to disentangle himself from a film project that wasn’t going the way he wanted, by trying to invoke talk of a curse. I learned how the stolen magnifying glass had not, actually, been stolen – but sold, some months before, to Marcus by somebody in this house, and replaced by a fake so the sale wouldn’t be suspected by the rest of the family. That discovery led me to learn of Marcus’s sidelines in blackmail and theft – and which of you had suffered or benefited from it.’ The censorious eye she cast over the suspects left them squirming.

‘Wait. The stolen magnifying glass wasn’t even the real one?’ Felicity sounded personally offended that she’d taken a fake.

‘No.’ Caro met Isobel’s gaze. ‘Would you like to explain how and why you came to sell Lettice Davenport’s jeweller’s loupe to Marcus?’