Posy made her way across the lawn, around the side of the house and skipped up the steps into the main hallway of Aldermere House, where she checked the schedule on the reception desk. She had an hour before she was due for pre-dinner drinks in the library, apparently.

She could corner Rosalind and Caro then, tell them they could stop worrying. She’d figured it all out. Clementine had sent the notes, then stolen the magnifying glass and done a runner – probably because she thought she was about to get caught by Isobel – so hadn’t met them at the folly. Now the police were after her, they could leave it to the professionals, and get back to what they were there to do – playing Dahlia for the fans.

Posy was still congratulating herself on her deductive skills when she walked into the China Room and found Lettice Davenport’s priceless jeweller’s loupe sitting on the dressing table.

Chapter Ten

‘Everyone has secrets. And until you uncover them all, you can’t know which ones are worth killing for.’

Dahlia Lively in The Lady Detective

By Lettice Davenport, 1929

Posy entered the library for pre-dinner drinks, dressed in another of Anton’s hideous tea dresses, but with diamante combs holding back her dark blonde hair, and freshly applied bright red lipstick giving her confidence. God knew she needed it.

After the initial shock of finding the stolen loupe in her room had worn off, it hadn’t taken Posy long to take stock of her options – and realise she hated all of them.

The obvious thing to do was to return the magnifying glass to Isobel, and hope she believed her when Posy explained how it came into her possession. Except Posy had no confidence that she would. While the reputation she’d blazed for herself back in LA hadn’t included shoplifting, she’d found that when people knew you’d committed one illegal act – say, drug taking – they always assumed you were capable of others. Posy couldn’t imagine the Davenport family letting her star as Dahlia if they thought she’d tried to steal from them – which would be taken as another sign of the curse on the movie.

But she’d considered handing the loupe over, all the same. Until she’d realised something else.

If Clementine wasn’t on the run with the magnifying glass … why had she left? Was it really because of a family emergency? Was this theft linked somehow to the blackmail photos she’d sent the three of them? Or was someone here at Aldermere trying to frame her? There had to be a reason it had been left in her room, didn’t there?