“Oh, no-not then. It was two people. One of them was that French girl whom I never liked, Marie Bonnet-and I suppose I ought not to say so now, because Darsie tells me she has been murdered too. Only you can’t really like people just because they have got themselves murdered trying to blackmail someone-for of course that is what she must have been trying to do.”

“Please go on, Mrs. Anning. One of the people who was coming down to the hut was Marie Bonnet. Who was the other?”

“It was a man-a foreign man. It is curious that foreigners never really lose their accent, isn’t it? I could hear it when he spoke to Marie. He said, ‘I will control myself-I will control myself. But I must see whether he has the paper. If he has, then he is my brother’s murderer, for only with his life would Felipe have parted with it.’ ‘Now,’ I thought, ‘what will Adela Castleton do? If she comes out they will see her, and if they go in they will see her, and that will look very odd.’ And I thought it very odd that there wasn’t any sound from inside the hut-nothing from Adela, and nothing from Alan. It really did seem very strange.”

“Yes-go on.”

She looked from one to another of them like a child seeking for reassurance. Miss Silver supplied it.

“You are doing very well indeed, Mrs. Anning. Pray continue.”

“The man put on a torch, and they went round to the door of the hut. And then they both called out-not loud, you know, but as if there was something dreadful. Marie said, ‘O mon dieu! Il est mort!’ and the man said a lot of things that sounded like Spanish or Portuguese. My husband and I made a tour in Portugal once at the time of the vintage, such lovely grapes and so cheap, and that is what it sounded like. Only when he was talking to Marie they spoke English. She said, ‘Quick, quick-we must come away!’ And he said, ‘No, no, no-not until I see if he has the paper!’ She said he was mad, and they would be mixed up in a murder. And he said she didn’t understand-it was his uncle’s letter telling them where the treasure was, and he would be mad if he let it go. And then, I think, he must have found it, because he began to talk his own language again, all very quick and excited and rather as if he was swearing. Marie went on saying that they must get away, and all at once he was in a hurry too. Then she said they mustn’t go back up the path, they must find a pool where he could wash and on round the next point and up another way. They went away down the beach, and Adela Castleton came out of the hut, but she hadn’t got as far as the cliff, when we could hear someone else coming down from the cliff path. Adela didn’t come back. She must have stood close in under the cliff to hide. I went farther round the hut, and I waited to see who was coming now. There was a sound as if someone had tripped over the threshold and come down. Whoever it was called out, and there was the flicker of a torch. So I looked round the front corner of the hut, and there was a girl with very fair hair and a white dress. She had a torch in her hand and it was shaking. One minute the beam went up in the air, and the next minute it shone down on a dagger that was sticking in Alan’s back. That was when I knew he must be dead. It didn’t seem as if it could be real. He deserved to be punished, you know, but it isn’t right to murder people, and I was sorry for the girl, because it wasn’t her fault. Of course she ought not to have come there, but it must have been a dreadful shock. She was making little crying noises under her breath, and when she got up the front of her dress was most dreadfully stained. She went away, and I was just thinking of going myself, when a man came down the path. I didn’t want to have to wait any longer, but of course I had to. I really did think Darsie would miss me if I didn’t get away soon, because sometimes these hot nights she looks in and gets me a drink. She doesn’t sleep very well, I’m afraid, and she is always so very good to me.”

Darsie Anning felt the hard prick of tears behind eyes which had not wept for years.

“Such a good daughter,” said Mrs. Anning’s placid voice. “And I thought how anxious she would be if she went into my room and found I wasn’t there. But of course I had to wait.”

“Did you know who the man was?”

“Oh, yes. It was James Hardwick. I used to see him sometimes when he was a boy, and after his uncle died he came to see Darsie and she thought I would like to see him too. He had a torch, and when he put it on the light caught his signet-ring and I saw the crest-a bird with something in its beak. I have very good sight.”

“What did he do?”

“He looked at Alan, and he said, ‘Oh, my God!’ And then he felt his pulse-only of course there wasn’t any. And after that he pulled out the dagger and went away down the beach with it towards the sea, and I thought he wouldn’t hear me on the shingle whilst he was walking on it himself, so I got away as fast as I could.”

“And that is all?”

“Oh, yes. Except that Darsie had come out to look for me. She went into my room, just as I was afraid she might, and she said I had given her a really terrible fright and I mustn’t ever do it again.”

There was a little silence when she had finished speaking. Then Frank Abbott said,

“Thank you very much, Mrs. Anning. That is a very clear statement. As far as it concerns Marie Bonnet and José Cardozo, the man who was with her, he will of course be asked to confirm it. As regards Major Hardwick and Mrs. Maybury, it coincides with statements they have made, and in Lady Castleton’s case, both Major Hardwick and I heard her make what amounted to an admission of her guilt.”

Mrs. Anning reached for her embroidery frame.

“Adela Castleton was always the same,” she said. “She had to have her own way. And it’s no use, is it? There are times when you can’t.”

Colonel Trevor had been profoundly shocked. Adela Castleton whom he had known for thirty years! It was the sort of thing you read about in the papers. Not that he read that kind of paper himself, but you couldn’t always get away from the headlines. Monstrous! He didn’t know what they were coming to! Well connected woman-well brought up-poor Geoffrey Castleton’s widow-going about murdering people right and left-trying to murder James! Must have been mad-only possible explanation-stark, staring mad!

Maisie Trevor had already begun to say that she had always thought there was something a little odd about Adela. “And that very hot weather-well, I suppose it just finished her. But I always did think…” And presently there would be all sorts of instances of strange behaviour on the part of Adela Castleton.

Pippa wept on Bill Maybury’s solid shoulder. She cried until her lovely white skin was blotched and her blue eyes practically invisible between swollen lids. All she wanted was to be able to go on crying with Bill’s arm round her, and to know that no one was going to arrest her or take her away to prison. Bill would keep her safe, and even if her eyes swelled right up and she looked a complete mess, he would go on loving her just the same. In her secret mind she promised her own rather vague idea of God that she would never, never, never flirt with anyone again, or let anyone kiss her except Bill. It would be dull, but she wouldn’t, she really wouldn’t. She clung to Bill and told him so between her sobs. He kissed the top of her head and held her close.

“Won’t you, Pippa?” he said.

In the big bedroom which had been Octavius Hardwick’s Carmona stood looking down over the garden which grew wooden figureheads instead of flowers-a woman with blank eyes and jutting breast; a Triton with a great carved shell; an Admiral battered by storms and come at last into a quiet haven, and many more. The cement path ran between them to the cliff. Adela Castleton had gone down it to kill in the night, not once but twice-had gone down it again on the morning of that very day with murder in her heart for James. Alan had gone down it on Wednesday not knowing that his death was no more than half a dozen hours away. Pippa Maybury had come up it with the stain of his blood on her dress.