Then suddenly she stopped outside a door, put her hand on the handle and eased it open before going in. By now my eyes were accustomed to the darkness of the hallway and I saw who it was. It was Sandra Sechrest. I told myself that she had also been on a nocturnal walk to heed the call of nature, and felt like a fool, until I realized that the room she had slipped into so silently was not her own but Johnnie Protheroe’s.

Chapter 27

Chapter 27

DECEMBER 28

I’ve started counting the days until I can go home, which is silly because I’m with Granddad and Darcy and frankly I haven’t a home to go to.

When I awoke the next morning I looked out at a landscape blotted out by mist and the first thought that came to me was, I wonder who is going to be killed today?

The fact that this came to me so readily was shocking. How could I have possibly come to accept that one person would die every day in this little part of Devon? And anger flooded through me. Right there, as I stared out through the window at the ghostly bare branches of the orchard hovering in the mist, I made a decision. This could not be allowed to continue. Someone had to do something about it, and since the inspector was clearly incapable, it was up to me to use the expertise at my disposal and catch the murderer. I had my grandfather, with all his years of experience at Scotland Yard, and I had Darcy, who worked, I was sure, as some sort of spy. And I had assisted in a small way in some important cases. It was about time we did a little detective work ourselves.

I was already dressed by the time Queenie appeared with a tea tray—more of the tea in the saucer than the cup, I have to say. Her good intentions to be a perfect maid were rapidly slipping back into her normal behavior.

“Blimey, you’re already up,” she said. “I needn’t have bothered to come up all them stairs with the tea if I’d known.”

“You came up the stairs because one of your duties is to bring your mistress her morning tea, whether she wants it or not,” I pointed out.

She gave me a look as she put it down, none too gently, on the table. “Nasty old day,” she said, “and I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to go home. Do you know what they’re saying in the servants’ hall? They’re saying that there’s a Lovey Curse and one person will get struck down every day until New Year. I tell you, it ain’t half giving me the willies.”

“I don’t think you have to worry, Queenie. It’s only local people who are cursed,” I said.