“Faced with the Japanese Ambassador, flanked by a Prussian envoy and a Russian chargé d’affaires …” Joe made a mischievous speculation.

Cecily’s eyes crinkled with waspish humour. “Lavinia could, single-handedly, have provoked a second world war, right there at the table, and presided over it if the knives were sharp enough.”

“Ouch! But James is now free to remake his reputation?”

“He would have been had he not been besmirched with a much more serious accusation than making a bad choice of wife. Murder. We have to prove that he is innocent by possibly arresting, certainly making known, the identity of the person responsible. James’s career depends upon it.”

She turned the dark eyes of a Roman empress on Joe. Unblinking, forceful, hypnotic. “More than that. You know the state of the country. Financially ruined. Emotionally exhausted. The reins of power being tugged in all directions by the inexperienced hands of a crew of squabbling nonentities who call themselves a ‘coalition.’ We’re hurtling towards a cliff edge, Sandilands. James sees that. He is a strong-minded man and no appeaser of bullies. He knows what needs to be done and understands that he is the man to do it. He has built up support in preparation for the moment. We cannot afford to stand by and watch that support be cut out from under him. Undeservedly.”

“Are you telling me you have proof that he had nothing to do with his wife’s death?”

“I know with certainty and—yes—I can prove that my son had no involvement whatsoever. But I’m his mother. Of course I would say that. We need an independent authority, trusted by all, to discover this for himself. I hand you no names, Sandilands. But I will facilitate your enquiries. You have my permission to go anywhere, question anyone in the house. Do what you have to do.”

“You carefully say ‘person,’ your ladyship. Man? Woman? Are you hinting that perhaps I should be hunting about in the boudoir rather than the gun room?”

“I’m sure you are equally at home in both,” Cecily said crisply. “But, do agree, it could well have been a woman who arranged her death. It has all the hallmarks, wouldn’t you say, of a female mind? We are supposed to be the sex that prefers a clandestine approach to an outright assault. Women do not have the strength of mind and hand to sink knives into flesh; we tend to be ignorant of the workings of firearms, even if one should be to hand. A push in the back at the top of a staircase is perhaps the nearest we come to the physical assault. Killing at arm’s length, carried out by one of God’s innocent creatures—a perfect solution, wouldn’t you say? A female solution?”

Joe could have demolished her argument with countless examples from real life and real death but he was enjoying hearing her nonsense, wondering where she was heading with her theories.

“Yet it has a certain sporting element about it that to me speaks of a masculine mind set,” he said. “Tell me about her maid. Is she—was she—close to her mistress? Close enough to have vital information for us?”

“Oh, Grace Aldred is the girl’s name. I have interviewed Grace, of course, but she denies all responsibility. She’s very loyal to her mistress—alive or dead. I’ve kept her on here working as a laundry maid, even left her in possession of her old room, until such time as she can be made to confess to something.”

“Excellent!” Joe forced out the word. The old nuisance had probably ruined any chance of an unrehearsed testimony from the maid. “She is the first I should like to interview.”

“You’ll have to wait, I’m afraid. The housekeeper was so bold as to grant her leave to visit her sick mother in Bury.” Cecily heard her own tone of asperity and hurried to correct it. “I’m not criticising Mrs. Bolton. Our excellent housekeeper finds herself in an awkward position—between two mistresses, you might say. Lavinia’s reign is over and Mrs. Bolton will have shed no tears over that, and I am here, as you see, a power from the past, grabbing at the reins. Always with the prospect, of course, of a third mistress waiting in the wings. James will marry again. His career demands it. Meanwhile, Mrs. Bolton is a steady pair of hands and we all trust her judgement. Grace has been given a week’s leave. Of course,” she added casually, “there were other ladies in the house that weekend in April and I’ve prepared a list for you.”

Joe decided to take the bull by the horns. “We always look to the motive in killings, madam. Who stands to gain? In this case, you are right to suppose that your own son, James, fits the frame very well. He loses a wife you tell me was becoming a liability. Being her heir he must retain what is left of her fortune?”

“Of course. I’m glad to hear you speak so bluntly. It saves time and allows me to be equally blunt.” She gave him a sharp sideways look. “As no holds are barred I’ll tell you that my own suspicions fell originally on a certain female guest. A young lady my son has formed a regrettable attachment to. The girl is his student and a pampered one at that. I know that he spoke of her frequently to Lavinia and to me in glowing terms. Lavinia became suspicious—and who shall blame her?—of his relationship with this baggage and took the bold step of inviting the girl to spend a weekend here in April. To look her over, assess the danger and warn her off. She gave James no warning of her arrangement and the whole business was a disaster. The girl was pretty and intelligent and capable of winning any verbal skirmish Lavinia cared to engage her in. But, more importantly, it was clear to all that she trumped Lavinia on a subject dear to her own heart.”

“Which was horses, I understand.”

“Indeed. Lavinia had established that this girl had a certain way … an ability … with animals. Horses and dogs. During the day, Lavinia took her by the arm and set off on a tour of the estate. Just the two of them. Stables, kennels—we still keep spaniels and hounds and a few herd dogs—and they returned hours later with Lavinia shaken and angry. Now, Commissioner, I looked at the pair of them with foreboding. My blood turned to ice in my veins. I saw disaster ahead. But what I feared at that time was that it would be Lavinia herself who made an attempt on the girl’s life while she had her under her roof. Her reason for inviting her here, Commissioner? Lavinia was capable of such a clumsy manoeuvre.”

Cecily raised a hand to ward off objections that were not voiced. “No, I do not overstate my reaction. She was a woman of sudden rages. I’ve seen her badly mishandle her unfortunate mounts when her pride was at stake. I’ve witnessed her slashing a stable lad in the face with her whip. I know that she was overly harsh in her dealings with the cottagers. Adam Hunnyton and I have, too often, had to step in and repair, reinstate, reimburse … smooth feathers. I knew her to be—we all knew her to be—a cruel, bullying woman with what my dear husband would have called ‘a short fuse.’ I honestly thought she was capable of pushing someone downstairs or out of a window. And her target on this occasion was quite small and easily pushed, poor child. I’m sure no one would seriously blame her if she took steps to protect herself from an onslaught by Lavinia.”

Yes, compared with the Amazon proportions of Lavinia, Dorcas was quite small. In fact she was all the things Cecily was telling him. He could hear no misrepresentation or exaggeration in what she had to say. But was Dorcas a killer? A cunning and ruthless killer who might judge that the world would be a better place without Lavinia’s boots trampling it? Who might devise just such a righteous death under the hooves of an animal she had no respect or love for? Joe was shocked that he had even allowed the monstrous thought to take shape and twitch with life.

At least he was one step ahead of Cecily. He knew where she was heading with her comments. Deviously, disarmingly, towards putting the blame on Dorcas and then cancelling out the consequences. All this hocus pocus had been put on with the aim of taking Dorcas off the scene, if the worst came to the worst, on an accusation of murder. Had Cecily any idea of the girl’s connection with the police officer she was now confiding in? He could have sworn she hadn’t. Their names were in no way connected. Any relationship James Truelove was aware of had been explained to him by the devious Dorcas herself. Joe remembered Truelove had actually had him called to the telephone on one occasion to offer him advice on handling her. “You’ll get the best out of Miss Joliffe if you don’t run her in blinkers, Sandilands,” he’d told Joe briskly. Truelove probably connected him to Dorcas through her closeness to his sister, Lydia, and her family. After all, she’d lived with them in something approaching harmony for eight years. She loved them and they loved her like a daughter. “My guardians,” was her way of referring to Lydia and Marcus.