We were still laughing as she continued. “And there was something else I noticed yesterday. I don’t think she’s as old as we think. Did you see her hands? She didn’t have old hands. Look at your Granddad’s”—and she lifted one of his hands for my inspection—“wrinkles and age spots. Not at all nice. But hers were smooth and elegant.”

“Perhaps she just took care of them.”

“You can’t prevent age spots, no matter how much care you take.”

I tried to digest what this meant and then something struck me, like an explosion in my head. “Cornucopia,” I said, making them stop and look at me. “One of the words when we played charades. For the first syllable we had someone hobble like an old woman with corns. That was just after the two Misses Ffrench-Finch had crossed the room with Miss Prendergast. And later I had recalled that the first two walked exactly as we had depicted in the game, but Miss Prendergast strode out.”

“So if she’s really younger than she wants us to think,” Darcy said carefully, “what do you think that means?”

“That she’s not who she claims to be,” Mummy said. “What’s the betting she’s hiding out here?”

That stopped us all in our tracks at the bottom of the driveway.

“A package came for her yesterday,” I said. “From a firm in London. Angels. Any idea who they are?”

“I know that name. I’ve used them a thousand times. They’re well-known theatrical costumers,” Mummy said.

“Is it possible that she’s been hiding Robbins all this time, right under our noses?” Darcy said.

“Then who is she? We were told that his wife killed herself right after he was arrested. She couldn’t stand the shame,” I said.

“Killed herself by walking out into the ocean and the body was never found,” Darcy reminded me. “That’s an old trick for anyone who wants to disappear. So Mrs. Robbins is dead and Miss Prendergast, elderly spinster, comes to live in a Devon village, near where Robbins is in prison and where she can plan everything they are going to do when he breaks out.”

“Oh, crikey,” I said. “She was the first person on the scene when Miss Ffrench-Finch was found dead in her bed. It was Miss Prendergast who turned off the gas and opened the window.”

“So that there would be a legitimate reason for her prints to be on everything,” Granddad said.

“And yesterday in church,” Darcy went on, waving his arms excitedly now, “no wonder she had blood on her hands. She had just killed Barclay herself.”