‘So, the two main threats were dead. But with the discovery of Clementine’s body, and the post mortem on Marcus that would show up the poison, now our murderer had a problem. They needed to throw suspicion away from themselves, and onto the one person with the opportunity, the motive and the means.’ Caro held up the tiny figure of Hugh that Rosalind had found in the attic of the dollhouse.

‘What? No!’ Isobel gasped.

‘These little dolls have been showing up all over the place this weekend – designed, I imagine, to scare us away from our investigation. But this one … this one was a warning, wasn’t it?’ Caro didn’t speak to anyone directly, her gaze sweeping from face to face. But the feel of the room grew heavier with the switch to the personal.

The murderer was no longer an abstract ‘They’. The murderer was in the room with them.

‘You planned to make it look like suicide, I imagine,’ Rosalind said. ‘Maybe even pen a touching note about his guilt, and the family scandal. But with Hugh dead, along with everyone else who knew Clementine’s secret, everything would be tied up with a neat bow – and all the money would come to you, wouldn’t it? You even took the poison bottle from the shelf to use as a potential murder weapon – to make it look as though Hugh had used his aunt’s own poison to kill himself.’

Everyone’s gaze swung to the poison bottle with its skull and crossbones label sitting on the shelf, obviously unstolen once more.

‘That’s why we added the warning in our notes asking you here, telling you that the police would be searching everyone’s rooms tonight, while we met,’ Caro explained. ‘It was a lie. We knew that, beyond anything else, would make the murderer return the bottle to its rightful place, before this meeting. And they did.’

‘Luckily, someone was here to see who did it.’ Rosalind raised her voice a little, mostly for dramatic effect since she imagined Posy could hear her perfectly well from her hiding place. ‘Posy, dear?’

Posy stepped out from behind the curtain, and smiled – slow, and sure – and Rosalind knew they had solved this case for real.

Then, with a roar of frustration, Juliette burst forward and grabbed the poison bottle from the shelf, ripping the stopper out, and hurling the contents into Rosalind’s face.

Chapter Thirty

‘I always feel such a sense of triumph when we catch the bad guy,’ Johnnie said. ‘Don’t you?’

Dahlia, watching the policeman lead Mr Jenkins away in handcuffs, sighed. ‘Honestly? It always makes me feel a little bit sad.’

Dahlia Lively in Forever Summer

By Lettice Davenport, 1952

Posy

It all happened very quickly after that – so fast that, later, Posy wasn’t sure about the order of events, or who shouted what.