I put on my coat, grabbed my gifts and ran all the way down the drive, sliding a little in snow that had started to melt. I hammered on my mother’s door. When Granddad opened it I let out a huge sigh of relief.

“Oh, you’re all right. Thank goodness.”

“And why shouldn’t I be all right?” he asked, helping me off with my coat. “Fit as a fiddle, me.” And he thumped his chest. “Come on in, ducks. We’ve got company.”

I went through into the sitting room and found Detective Inspector Newcombe seated by the fire, a cup of tea in his hand.

“The inspector just dropped in for a chat,” Granddad said.

“There hasn’t been another death, has there?” I asked.

“Not that we’ve heard of,” the inspector said, “but I’m not at all happy. Those first deaths I could explain, but that poor woman at the telephone exchange—that had to be malicious and intentional. We can’t tell any more, because the place burned, but I’d say the wires were deliberately hooked up to kill someone. That’s why I came to see your grandfather, miss.”

Obviously it had slipped his mind that I wasn’t a miss, I was a milady. “My chief inspector is off skiing in France so it’s all up to me. I know I should probably call in Scotland Yard, but I don’t want to do that and look a fool, so I thought that a retired member of the Metropolitan Police Service could maybe give me some pointers.”

He looked hopefully at my grandfather. Granddad tried to look like someone who had been a Scotland Yard expert detective, instead of an ordinary copper.

“Do you have anyone around here who might have a grudge against the people who have died? Anyone who has been a bit off his rocker?”

The inspector shook his head. “Nobody. It’s normally quieter than the grave in these parts—oh, dear, that was a tactless expression, wasn’t it? But the occasional robbery, a bit of cattle or sheep stealing, someone beating up his old lady on a Saturday night—that’s what crime means to us. This has to be an outsider, and the only outsiders I know are those convicts.”

“There are all the people staying with Lady Hawse-Gorzley,” I pointed out. “They are all outsiders.”

“Yes, but with no connections to the people who have died, surely?” The inspector sounded shocked.

“I don’t think so,” I said. “Since they’ve just come from America and Yorkshire and India.”

“I wish they’d hurry up and catch those blasted convicts,” the inspector said. “Until they are caught I have to believe that they are hiding out on my patch and it’s up to me to find them.”