‘I’ll mention it to Howie. I’m rather hoping we can share the proceeds between us. The others are going to be getting businesses and houses and goodness knows what. It would be nice if we youngsters got a few bob out of it, too.’

  ‘You do that. Honestly, though, I’d be wary of this Baisley bloke – he sounds like a nasty piece of work from what Barty said. You can trust Mickey, though.’

  Dunn had joined them. ‘Trust Mickey? Course you can. Just make sure you count your rings if he ever kisses your hand.’

  Veronica smiled. ‘Duly noted. Have you put in a request for a phone call?’

  ‘No one to call,’ said Dunn. ‘Mrs C doesn’t have a phone and all my mates are here.’

  ‘Who’s Mrs C?’

  ‘My landlady. Mrs Phyllis Cordell. She’s a lovely old girl but she won’t be panicking just because I haven’t come home for a few nights.’

  ‘She is lovely,’ agreed Skins. ‘Can’t argue with that. And he’s a dirty stop-out, so she’s well used to his shenanigans.’

  ‘I assumed you’d have a gorgeous wife waiting for you,’ said Veronica.

  Skins looked at his friend and laughed. ‘You’re on your own, mate. I’m not even going to try to explain your love life.’

  ‘I’m very single,’ said Dunn with a sigh. ‘Very, very single.’

  With another chuckle, Skins walked away to find Ellie, leaving them to it.

  Once the excitement had died down and the telephone schedule was organized, the crowd dispersed once more, leaving Ellie, Skins and Dunn in the dining room with Veronica.

  ‘You know this house like the back of your hand, I bet,’ said Skins.

  ‘Almost,’ said Veronica. ‘Until earlier today I’d have said, “Yes, definitely,” but then you lot went and found a secret room no one knew even existed, and now I’m beginning to doubt everything I thought I knew about the place.’

  ‘But apart from the secret room,’ said Ellie, ‘there’s nowhere here, inside or out, you don’t know?’

  ‘Almost certainly. I was the absolute queen of hide and seek. Why?’

  ‘It’s like this,’ said Dunn. ‘We’re pretty sure now that your father really was murdered. We know how the killer got out and made it look like John had locked himself in the room alone. Well, more or less. Getting out while you were outside is still a stumper. Ellie heard the shot, then you all tried to break in . . . But leaving that for a bit, what we also can’t figure out is how the killer got from the chapel to the house and back without anyone knowing.’

  ‘Is there a covered walkway?’ asked Ellie. ‘Or just a sheltered route. Is there another way into the chapel other than through the main door?’

  ‘There are only a couple of ways to get to the chapel. I’ve never wondered how sheltered they are, though.’

  ‘Do you mind showing us?’

  ‘Not at all. Walk this way.’

  Skins glanced at Ellie. The look on her face persuaded him to say nothing.

  They followed Veronica to the front door.

  ‘From here we can see the delightfully symmetrical front elevation of Bilverton House. Typical of the Georgian period, the house was . . . It’s no good, I can’t keep it up. I’d be no use as a bear-leader.’

  ‘A what?’ said Skins.

  ‘Bear-leader. You know, the chaps who used to take young toffs on the Grand Tour.’

  ‘I live and learn.’

  ‘Anyway, I’m afraid that for all I know about the history of the house, I’m a duffer when it comes to the technical stuff – the architecture and whatnot. But I do know my way around, at least.’

  ‘That’s all that matters.’

  ‘Well, quite. So if we turn to our left, we pass Papa’s old study, then a little way on, we’ll go left again at the corner of the building. Hello, what’s that wheelbarrow doing under the window?’

  ‘Oh,’ said Ellie, ‘that was me. I needed something to stand on so I could look into the study on Saturday.’

  ‘I say. How enterprising. Where did you find it?’

  They rounded the corner, where Ellie pointed to the garden wall about five yards ahead. ‘Just over there.’

  ‘Of course. You’ve seen the garden from the garden parlour, I assume. That gate there will let you in, and there’s another on the opposite side that will let you out again on to the path that runs along the back of the house.’

  ‘The route we usually take to get to the chapel,’ said Skins. ‘Leads on to the bit with all the trees growing over it and that.’

  ‘Our “bowered path”, yes. But if you follow the wall all the way to the end we find . . .’

  ‘Apple trees,’ said Ellie. ‘They’d provide pretty good cover.’

  ‘Ah, yes,’ said Veronica. ‘But there’s a problem with that. Follow me.’

  She led them to the end of the wall, where they found themselves in a small orchard. In contrast to the formality of the walled garden, the orchard was a higgledy-piggledy collection of trees of various sizes and ages that had been left to grow entirely as they pleased.

  ‘It must have been fantastic growing up with your own supply of fresh apples,’ said Skins. ‘I love an apple.’

  Veronica led them towards the first trees. ‘You’d think so, wouldn’t you? Trouble is, these are cider apples. Perfectly edible, of course, but hardly the treat you might imagine.’

  ‘On the other hand,’ said Dunn, ‘it must have been fantastic as a youngster having your own supply of cider.’

  ‘That was definitely fun, yes. We used to sneak into the brewing sheds over there and help ourselves.’

  ‘Any trapdoors in there?’ asked Skins.

  ‘Sadly not. Just solid wooden sheds with flagstone floors.’

  Ellie, meanwhile, understood why Veronica had said there was a problem. Although the low canopy formed by the jumble of trees might provide limited shelter from the rain, the ground – even after more than a day of sunshine – was a morass.

  ‘I see what you mean,’ she said. ‘No one could get through all that mud without getting covered to the ankles in it. It would be even more noticeable than damp clothes.’

  ‘And they’d leave tracks,’ said Dunn. ‘No one’s been over there for days.’

  ‘Certainly doesn’t look like it,’ agreed Skins. ‘What happens if you go round it?’

  Veronica pointed ahead. ‘Then you end up along the side wall of the chapel. Do you see?’

  ‘And is there another way in?’

  ‘There’s a side door that used to open into the vestry, but that’s the bathroom now so it’s been blocked off from the inside. The door’s still there, but if you can get it open – and I honestly don’t know if you still can – you’d just find yourself facing a blank wall.’

  They carried on past the orchard to the chapel, where they saw that there was, indeed, a side door. The gap between the door and its frame had been filled with plaster and varnished over. The keyhole was similarly filled and painted black to match the other fittings, while the handle, when Skins tried to twist it, turned out to be welded in place.

  ‘Purely ornamental,’ said Veronica.

  There was a path of sorts along the chapel wall where the ground had been cleared of weeds, and the four explorers followed it to the main door.

  ‘You’d get a little shelter from the weather if you hugged the wall,’ said Dunn, ‘but you’d already be soaked by the time you got here.’

  ‘Or muddy,’ said Skins.

  ‘Or both,’ said Ellie.

  They stood together by the main door and looked along the bowered path.

  Skins sighed. ‘So that’s it, then. If you leave here by the main chapel door, you get wet whether you go to the back door of the house or the front.’

  Ellie nodded. ‘And you get wetter still on the way back.’

  ‘And no one was wet,’ said Dunn. ‘Or were they?’

  ‘I didn’t notice anyone dripping,’ said Veronica.

  ‘And we’re sure there was no one missing?’ asked Ellie.

  Veronica shook her head. ‘No one. Uncle Malcolm was in his control room – we could hear him in there playing back his recordings. You lot were all in your seats with your instruments. Let me see . . . Down at our end, Papa was with Charlotte. Marianne was with Betty and Peter. I was with Kenny. Howard was with your manager, Katy. And you were sitting on your own until you got up to play the piano.’

  ‘Where was Gordon?’ asked Skins.

  ‘Do you know, I have no idea,’ said Veronica.

  ‘He was sitting on his own,’ said Ellie. ‘I remember that much. So that’s everyone.’

  ‘It is. That’s how we stayed from when Papa got up to go to the house until you and I went with Betty to fetch the hampers. Apart from visits to the loo, obviously. Everyone was back and forth to the little bathroom the whole time.’

  ‘Who was sitting nearest to the door?’ asked Ellie.

  ‘Gordon, I think.’

  ‘And you’re certain he didn’t leave?’

  ‘Not certain, but we’d have heard the door, surely?’

  ‘Not if everyone was concentrating on the band,’ said Dunn. ‘We’re pretty loud.’

  Veronica thought for a moment. ‘All right, I’ll concede that. But we’ve just established that he couldn’t have got to the house and back without getting soaked, haven’t we? There’s no sheltered route between here and the house. But no one said, “Gosh, Gordon, you’re frightfully wet.” And he didn’t reply, “I was just thinking that. Must be a leak in the roof.” No one said anything at all.’

  ‘People don’t notice things,’ said Dunn. ‘No one was talking to him, after all. And by the time we all realized how hungry we were, all eyes were on you and Elizabeth while you organized the catering party. He could have sat there quietly dripping without anyone paying him the slightest bit of attention.’

  Ellie nodded. ‘He’d have been even drier by the time I came back over here with the news.’

  ‘And everyone just wanted to find out what was going on,’ said Dunn. ‘So there still wasn’t any reason for anyone to notice that Gordon was a bit damper than usual. Even if they did, he’d only have been a little wetter than everyone else. You all got soaked getting over here. I think he’s our main suspect.’

  Skins made a face. ‘I’m still not convinced.’

  ‘It all fits, though,’ said Dunn. ‘He had more than one motive. As far as he knew, his dad was sleeping with his wife—’

  ‘As far as he knew?’ interrupted Veronica. ‘We all knew.’

  ‘Yes, of course, sorry. So he knew that. One way or another he was going to inherit the business. Men have been driven to kill for much less.’

  ‘Yeah, but . . .’ said Skins. ‘I mean . . . Well, look. Whoever did it went to a lot of trouble over that lock. It was all well planned. I can’t believe they’d have done all that and then just taken a chance on no one noticing them coming and going. They’d have it better organized than that.’

  ‘Maybe he just saw his chance and took it. Everyone was here, distracted by us lot . . . It was a perfect opportunity.’

  ‘We all knew Papa was going to be working on Saturday afternoon. He’d made a big thing of it,’ said Veronica.

  Dunn nodded enthusiastically. ‘Exactly. So having everyone still in the chapel listening to us probably changed the murderer’s plans a bit. He’d have been expecting everyone to be in the house so he could come and go as he pleased. When he found himself sitting in the chapel, he had to improvise.’

  ‘I’m afraid I’ve another objection,’ said Ellie. ‘I’d not thought of this before, but I heard the gunshot at four o’clock. That means the killer must have been in the room then. We started out thinking the killer must have been hiding in the room somehow, so I never questioned it, but thanks to Ivor, we now know he was able to get out and leave the door locked behind him. We’ve just been talking as though we assume the killer struck before I went back to the house with the sisters. But if John was already dead, how did I hear the shot at four?’

  Skins spun round and looked at them. ‘The gramophone record.’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘Oh,’ said Dunn. ‘Very clever.’

  Skins turned back towards the house. ‘Come on, then, let’s have a look.’

  He raced down the bowered path with the others close behind.

  Skins and Dunn almost pushed each other over in their hurry to be the one to switch on the gramophone in John Bilverton’s study. Skins won, and while the valves in the amplifier were warming up, he lifted the record and examined it closely.

  ‘Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” by the Paul Whiteman Orchestra,’ he said. ‘Looks exactly like our copy. The label’s properly stuck down. Can’t see anything odd about it at all.’

  He put it on the turntable and set down the needle. He, Ellie and Dunn knew the piece well and it played through exactly as they’d been expecting. They listened in silence until it reached the end, then Skins lifted the needle and switched everything off.

  ‘So much for that,’ said Dunn.

  ‘It was a good idea, though,’ said Ellie.

  ‘What were you hoping to find?’ asked Veronica.

  Skins pointed to the electric gramophone. ‘I thought the sound of the gunshot might have come from this thing. There’s equipment in the chapel for making recordings on discs and everyone has access to it.’

  ‘So if the killer wanted it to sound like the shot happened at some other time,’ said Dunn, ‘he could record it on the disc, maybe set up some sort of timer, and be long gone by the time someone heard the bang. John said he wanted tea at four, so there was a good chance someone would be outside to hear it if the timer were set for then.’

  Skins flopped dejectedly into the chair. ‘But the record is just the record, and there’s no sign of any sort of timer.’ He sighed. ‘That’s that then, isn’t it? The old proverbial wild goose whatnot. John really did shoot himself and the trick lock was just some sort of joke – a last laugh at everyone else’s expense.’

  ‘What about the wound, though, mate?’ said Dunn. ‘He can’t have shot himself and left that sort of wound. It was the first thing we agreed on.’

  ‘We must have been mistaken, then.’

  ‘So we’re just giving up, are we?’

  ‘To be honest, we might as well. The family doctor will be here tomorrow and it’ll all be explained away. There’ll be a funeral, and the reading of the will, and everyone will get on as normal. If things work out, Howard will do something splendid with his share of the spoils from the postcards. You’ll get a place of your own somewhere, Veronica. Everyone else will do whatever it is they want to do and we’ll play at the Preening Parrot as if nothing ever happened.’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘He might be right, Barty,’ said Ellie. ‘We might have been barking up the wrong kettle of fish the whole time. Maybe we should just enjoy dinner with everyone one last time and say our goodbyes as though we never thought one of them was a murderer.’

  ‘But one of them is a murderer,’ said Veronica forcefully. ‘You’ve convinced me. There’s too much that’s not right. Papa wasn’t the sort of man to kill himself. You said the wound couldn’t be self-inflicted. The lock was modified. Nothing adds up.’ She looked around the room. ‘And what’s that bloody cushion doing in here? That’s from the library.’

  ‘Maybe the killer brought it in here to muffle the sound of the shot,’ said Dunn. ‘But he decided he didn’t need it because the thunderstorm was so loud.’

  ‘You see? Another thing that doesn’t add up. Please don’t give up. Someone in my family is a murderer and I won’t be able to sleep soundly until I know who. They might come after me next.’

  Ellie put a hand on Skins’s shoulder. ‘We’ll just let it all percolate again. If we forget about it for a few hours and clear our heads, one of us might still have a brainwave before it’s too late. Let’s get back to the others and see about some early evening cocktails.’

  Cocktails, though, were to be delayed.

  Ellie, Skins and Dunn walked out into the Grand Hall.

  Skins had begun a joke. ‘So this Great Dane walks into a post office, and he picks up a telegram form—’

  The three friends stopped in their tracks. Lying in an impossibly contorted position at the foot of the stairs was the body of Marianne Bilverton.

  Once again it was Ellie who collected her wits quickly enough to rush forward and check for signs of life.

  ‘She’s breathing,’ she said. ‘Pulse is weak, but it’s there. Ivor – hold her head very still while I check her for injuries.’

  Skins knelt at Marianne’s head and gripped her tightly while Ellie ran her hands along her limbs and around her body.

  ‘No sign of anything broken,’ she muttered. Then, more loudly, she said, ‘Marianne. Marianne. Can you hear me? Don’t move, but if you can hear me, squeeze my finger.’

  There was no response.

  ‘Is everything all right down there?’ called Gordon from the gallery.

  Another door opened and Malcolm leaned over the balustrade.

  ‘I say, is she all right?’

  Gordon was already on his way down the stairs, closely followed by Peter. Charlotte had emerged, too, and she and Malcolm arrived at the bottom of the stairs together.

  ‘Oh, my goodness,’ said Charlotte, her hand flying to her mouth. ‘Is she . . . ?’

  ‘She’s alive, and I can’t find any obvious broken bones,’ said Ellie. ‘But she has a terrific bump on the back of her head and she’s unconscious. I can’t rouse her at all.’

  ‘Should we move her?’ asked Gordon.

  Ellie felt Marianne’s neck again before indicating that Skins could safely let go. ‘There’s no damage to her neck, so it would probably be good to get her into bed and comfortable. Can somebody stay with her? She needs someone to keep an eye on her. Head injuries can be very dangerous.’