“I’ll never get these awful images out of my mind, as long as I live,” Mrs. Upthorpe said. “First poor Mrs. Sechrest and now that organist. I think we should go home now, Arthur, and not wait for the New Year.”

“Oh, but we have to stay for the last event, Mummy,” Ethel said, her eye on Badger. “Only one more day.”

“How do I know that we’ll be safe? I can’t believe that they were accidents.”

“They weren’t,” I said and felt all those eyes upon me. “We now know that it was one of those escaped convicts behind all these deaths. They were all clever murders. But don’t worry. The police will soon have him.” I sounded more optimistic than I felt. If he had evaded us all so far, what chance did the police have now that there were no more people left to kill? If he had fulfilled his mission and killed off his jurors, surely he’d be out of this area right away.

“I’m so sorry this had to spoil your lovely holiday here,” Lady Hawse-Gorzley said. “After we went to so much trouble to make everything perfect for you.”

There were murmurs of understanding from those around her. Mrs. Wexler even patted her knee, which brought an astonished look from Lady H-G. I took a scone and went to sit beside Darcy. “Am I forgiven for worrying you?”

“Now do you see why I was worried?” he said. “That man couldn’t have been killed long before we arrived in the church. The blood was still running. That meant that the murderer was probably still somewhere close by, watching us. He may even have been in the church somewhere.”

“I don’t know why nobody has seen him,” I said.

“If he adopted various characters as part of his stage act, then he is probably a master of disguise. We may have walked right past him and not recognized him.” His gaze went across the room to the colonel, now sitting eating calmly beside his wife. She did not look so serene. She looked decidedly pale, in fact. Had she realized what he was doing, perhaps?

“When do you think you’ll get an answer to your telegram?” I asked.

“Shouldn’t take too long to check War Office records,” Darcy said.

Tea concluded. Nobody felt much like doing anything, but I noticed that they all chose to sit together in the drawing room, rather than go off alone. I couldn’t blame them. I shared their fear.

Darkness fell and reluctantly we went up to dress for dinner. Queenie was waiting in my room, wide-eyed with a mixture of fear and excitement. “They say someone got killed again, miss,” she said. “Had his head bashed in with a great lump of rock. Blimey, what a place, eh? Give me the old East End any day. Do you reckon we’re safe here, in this house?”