“Here they are,” I said and threw the dust sheet off a rack of costumes.

“Let me see, what do I want to be?” Darcy examined them one by one. “Not a gorilla. Too hot. Caveman? I might fancy that. Then I could drag you across the room by your hair.”

“Which, in case you haven’t noticed, is not long enough to do that,” I said. “Besides, there is no cavewoman outfit.”

“You could be a second Wild Sal,” Darcy said. “Look at this airy-fairy outfit. I’m sure you could waft around if you wanted to.”

I held it up. “I don’t think I’m the wafting type,” I said.

Darcy was staring at the floor. “Someone else wanted to get first dibs on costumes, I see. Look at the footprints. Someone has been up here before us.” He pointed at the row of neat footprints in the dust.

“Probably just Lady Hawse-Gorzley or one of the maids sent up to make sure the costumes were brushed and clean.” I put back the Wild Sal outfit.

“Pity there’s no Charles the Second,” Darcy said, “because you could borrow some oranges from downstairs and be Nell Gwynne in this dress.” He held it out to me. “Rather a daring bodice, don’t you think? But then, Nell never did mind displaying her oranges.”

I could see that we were getting nowhere. “Look,” I said. “How about this? We could go as gypsies. I’m sure there are red scarves and big golden earrings in the dressing-up box downstairs.”

“I wouldn’t mind being a gypsy,” he agreed. “I’ve always rather fancied the outdoor life.”

“Good. Then that’s settled.” I handed him an outfit with baggy trousers, lacy white shirt and black waistcoat. “Let’s go find Monty.”

Darcy sighed and followed me down the stairs.

Chapter 28

Chapter 28

DECEMBER 28

A half hour later we had picked up my grandfather and were ready to embark upon a day of detecting.

“We should start with the first death,” I said. “You don’t happen to know which tree in the orchard it was, do you?”

“Haven’t got a clue, ducks,” my granddad said. “But we could take a butcher’s if you like.”

“A butcher’s?” I asked.

“Butcher’s hook—rhyming slang for look.”

“I’ll never get the hang of rhyming slang,” I said. “It seems to take twice as long to say something as the actual word it represents.”

“Ah, well, the object is that the toffs don’t understand what we’re talking about,” he said.” Rhyming slang and then back slang before it. Private language in a crowded city.”

“Oh, I see.”

“I don’t see any point in going to look at the orchard,” Darcy said. “We know that the police trampled all over it.”

“We could question the man’s servants,” I suggested.