"You must come," said Joanna, as I poured out a fresh cup for her.

I sipped my own tea.

"Where exactly is Grange-over-Sands?" I asked. "Which part of Lancashire?"

"It's on the north side of Morecambe Bay, in the district known as Furness. The Gulf Stream washes the west coasts of the British Isles, the climate is mild even at this time of year, and the Lakes are not far away. We could go riding or cycling. Can you cycle?"

"Yes."

"We'll struggle, but the exercise will do us both good. Do come, Anna. You need the holiday."

Joanna was right. Since the ghastly escapade at Gowanburn Grange I had been in despair. Marie had worried over me since our return, because of Mycroft's treachery towards me, and Emmeline's betrayal of Stephen. I suspected that my maid had a hand in the developing events. She and Joanna's maid, Elisabeth, were thick as thieves, and almost certainly Elisabeth learned of Mycroft's affaire with Emmeline only hours after we got home. Elisabeth was a bubbly Scotch blonde who had helped Marie find her present situation with me. They were both of a size, rather smaller than I am, and happy in each other's company whenever they got a chance.

Joanna called the following day, full of concern beneath her sparkle. She invited me to spend Christmas with the Winstanley clan in Furness. Every year they took a large house somewhere quiet, Sebastian bringing Stella to join them after celebrating Christmas at his church in Galway. They had been to Norfolk and Cornwall, and this year were trying somewhere new.

"It's easier for Sebastian and Stella to reach us. We'll be such a jolly party," Joanna coaxed me.

"It's a return to the North," I objected. "Surely we'll have difficulty travelling if it snows."

"It's the milder side of England," replied Joanna. She took my hands, her deep green eyes clouded with anxiety. "Do say you'll come."

"Very well," I said, and wept a little. "Oh, Joanna! I do so much need a good friend. I'm at the end of my tether over Mycroft."

"Anna, put Mycroft out of your mind. You'll feel better for it. But do come to Furness. I need you there. There's the question of Lucy's future."

After the Swiss adventure, Lucy had gone to her sister and brother-in-law in Galway. To everyone's undisguised relief, she had miscarried the child of Baron Grüner. For a while her condition had caused concern among her family and friends, but she had fully recovered.

"Is she well enough to come?" I asked, fearing that she would cast a cloud over Joanna's jolly party. So would I.

"Yes, she's quite well now. She has changed her ways, is doing a lot of reading, and hasn't once looked at a man, so Stella tells me. We've decided, Stella and I, to complete the Winstanley - Alnford-Ross alliance, for Lucy's good."

I knew at once what she meant and said so.

"Correct," chuckled Joanna. "With Henry, if we can arrange things properly. After Switzerland, Sebastian and Stella decided that enough was enough where Lucy was concerned. The miscarriage simply increased their determination to do something about her, and Lucy herself has now begun to see sense."

"But Tubby's not the marrying sort. He never seems to take any notice of women; in fact, he doesn't seem to need them."

"Henry does lead a self-contained life, but I fancy he'd be amenable to a wife."

"Possibly. But - Lucy? Would she want him?"

"Well, why not come and find out what happens? We're assembling the weekend before Christmas. There's a good early train on Saturday, although Richard and I will catch the later one."

She wrote down the address in her fine copperplate hand.

"Stanerigg House. It's on a small offshore island that you can reach via a causeway. It has the most lovely views and is very comfortable."

I had time to complete my seasonal shopping. I had marked down a lovely pair of cufflinks and shirt stud for Mycroft before we went to Northumberland, and with a tightening of the throat and a prickling behind the eyes I passed the Bond Street window displaying them. I spent the money on Marie instead.

Early on Saturday the twenty-first, Marie and I left Euston on a journey that would take the best part of the short day. After seeing to the luggage, Marie secured an empty compartment, and the issue of a possible marriage between Lucy and Tubby fully occupied us as the express roared through the stark winter countryside. Marie raised the question of my outfit for the wedding, but I cautioned her to wait and see whether Joanna's plans would bear fruit. She laughed.

"They cannot fail, mam'selle. All Mrs Winstanley's relations will make sure of that. If you will permit me to say so, they cannot afford any more escapades such as we went through last summer. Especially so, now that Mr 'Olmes is no longer - one of us."

She voiced my own thoughts. If Mycroft was no longer part of our lives, we could not expect his aid if we should find ourselves in need of it. However, I did not anticipate taking part in any further adventures. Mycroft had left me alone since leaving Northumberland, but I was still living in the rooms he owned opposite the Diogenes Club. When we returned, I would find new lodgings and possibly go back on the stage. An independent life would suit me well.

Our rail journey was long but uneventful. We changed at Carnforth and by late afternoon arrived at Grange-over-Sands. There we met the carrier to take us to Stanerigg House. We drove through the little town along the shore of Morecambe Bay, where the water constantly displayed a variety of colours, apple-red, grey-blue and glistening green. The air was mild for winter and the tang of salt and seaweed in nose and throat gladdened my heart and quickened my blood.

"Is the tide out?" I asked the carrier.

"Aye, ma'am, and tha doesn't want to be caught out ther' when it comes back in. It moves at the speed of a gallopin' 'oss, and ther's been plenty o' drownin's when folk are caught by it."

"Why should they be caught?"

"Crossin' afoot from one side o' t'bay to t'other. It's shorter than goin' round by road. Tha can do it if tha gets a guide, but I wouldn't recommend it on the' own, ma'am. Ther's quicksand to be reckoned with too. That ther's t'causeway to 'Olme Island - Holme, I should say. That's it ower yonder."

He pointed out a huge humped shape, thick with trees, lying close to the shore.

"Stanerigg 'Ouse is ower ther' on t'island, but tha can't see it fer t'trees. But - "

His last words were drowned by the sudden, frightening shriek of a train on the line not twenty feet away.

"Aye, they allus whistle ther'. Dunno why," chuckled the carrier as Marie indignantly readjusted her hat after the shock.

"Is that place a house or an hotel?" I asked, indicating a huge grey building visible through the trees on the other side of the railway line.

"'Otel," said the carrier. "Hazelwood Hydropathic." He carefully pronounced his aitches for the name of the hotel. "Folk come to tak t'cure ther'. See, t'climate round 'ere's very mild, even this time o' year, although tha can mebbe see t'snow on t'fell tops ower yonder."

Holme Island was really a peninsula joined to the mainland by the causeway. A lodge house stood at the shore end, and the causeway seemed about a mile long. Stanerigg House itself lay at the other side of the wooded island, at the end of a long drive. It was modern, but built in the modern style of trying to look hundreds of years old.

"Why," I exclaimed, "what an isolated spot! The Winstanleys must like a very quiet Christmas." 1

The housekeeper met us and, with Marie's help, she and the housemaids took my luggage upstairs. I had brought the minimum for a two-week stay: a sufficient variety of evening gowns, with day dresses and riding and cycling outfits, but not enough to fill the wardrobe completely. There were so few blouses that one drawer of the tallboy was left entirely empty. While Marie was unpacking, she slipped my small ivory-handled revolver into the empty drawer.

"My pistol, Marie?"

"But of course, mam'selle. In your case, if I may be forgiven for saying so, one never knows when you will need it."

I sat on the huge four-poster bed. The room was warmly aglow with the rays of the declining sun and I basked in them. How wonderfully they brought out the reds and pinks of the hangings and cushion covers. I smiled and shook my head at my maid's misgivings.

"Marie, this is a Christmas holiday. You'll be telling me next you've brought your derringer."

She had, but she was sadly mistaken if she thought for one moment that we needed to be armed. Joanna had outlined the programme, and the liveliest activity would be charades, apart from the manoeuvres to bring Tubby and Lucy together.

We had about an hour before it grew dark, and there were some cycles in a shed. Mrs Tyson, the housekeeper, persuaded the gardener to let us take a couple and we set off on a short ride, dressed as we were in our travelling costumes. Marie was an indifferent but game cyclist, and I followed her as she wobbled along in front of me down the causeway.

"If we get to the road, Marie, that will be enough," I said.

"Mam'selle," panted Marie, "it will certainly be enough."

"We can turn back, you know."

"No, mam'selle, let us try to reach the road."

We reached our objective and stopped for breath. By now my own legs were aching and rather wobbly, and Marie stumbled to a large stone bollard and sat unsteadily on it. The sinking sun played on her features. Behind her were the sands, with a trap moving steadily across them away from us, perhaps driven by one of the people who gather cockles in the bay.

"Mam'selle, I feel that I may have to stay here all night. My legs feel so queer. I think that gardener, he must have given me the most difficult machine. What was his name, mam'selle, if I may ask?"

"Esau, a Biblical name, and rather unusual. Now, we must try to get back, as our machines have no lights, and I don't wish to essay the causeway in the dark."

We turned our cycles at the junction of the causeway and the road, and prepared to make the journey back, but Marie asked if we could delay for a few minutes longer.

"It is the legs, mam'selle. They seem to have turned into rubber. I shall ask Esau to oil this machine."

Along the road came a dog-cart with two people in it. It was heading in the direction of the Hazelwood Hydro Hotel. I was steadying Marie at the time, and she squeaked as my grip tightened on her arm. The dog-cart clattered by, and I pointed at it. The driver, a huge, bulking man, was well-known to me even from behind. He was a skilful driver, and I had many times seen the flick of his whip. The woman beside him had an arm shamelessly about his enormous waist, her head resting on his shoulder as mine had often done for many years. Marie gasped.

"Mam'selle, do you think they saw us?"

I had no doubt of it. The revelation that Mycroft was in the locality with Emmeline immobilised both of us for a minute or so more. At last we set off along the causeway. The setting sun lit up the empty mud flats to our right, empty except for a curious bundle which lay on the wet sand about fifty yards off.

"That was not there when first we came past, mam'selle," panted Marie, wobbling gamely behind me.

We both braked and stared out over the sand.

"Would you say that was a person, Marie?"

"I would, mam'selle. And if the person does not soon get up, he will be drowned by the sea as it comes in."

We both knew, of course, that the person would not be able to get up. Without saying anything more, we dismounted, scrambled down the sloping, rocky side of the causeway and made our way carefully out to where he was lying. The dying sunlight played on the knife handle between his shoulder blades.

"I'm positive," I replied.

"And could you see any footmarks?" asked the constable. "Or was it too dark to see by then?"

"I'm afraid we didn't look," I replied. "We were so shocked at discovering the body that we simply ran back to our bicycles and made our way here."

"You didn't think of calling at the police station?"

"I had no idea where it was. Mrs Tyson sent the gardener."

"It were t'gardener's boy that called on us," answered the constable, "the gardener being nowhere to be found. Although when I came I saw him in t'front room of his cottage, the one by the entrance to t'drive. He must have been out. Anyroad, he knew nowt about it neither."

"So I suppose the murder occurred in broad daylight, there on the beach?"

"Aye, mebbe, or he could 'ave been killed elsewher' and left ther'. Ther'll be no way o' tellin' now, 'cause tide's coming in. We got him off t'beach just in time, Esau and me."

Marie shuddered. She was sitting in one of the easy chairs in the parlour of Stanerigg House. I was on the edge of another, twisting my handkerchief between my fingers, and the fat constable stood between us holding his book in the light of the paraffin lamp. The body was in the conservatory, Esau having refused to have it in his cottage.

"Have you anything to add, miss?" the policeman asked Marie.

"Mais non, constable. Miss Weybridge she has said all that can be said."

"Is he - was he - a local man?" I asked.

"Well now, mum, I know all the local chaps, but I never seen him afore. Mind you, I ain't gone through his pockets yet, so I might yet find out who he is. The thing was, to get your statements while things were still fresh in your minds, as you might say. After all, when you have a murder, mum, you first need a body - that's habeas corpus, you see - then you tek t'statements o' t'witnesses. In fact, if you've nothing further to say, I'll have a proper look at him, then I'll cycle back to see t'station sergeant and we'll wire local C.I.D. man to come down."

He put away his notebook and drew himself up to his full height.

"We may yet have to bring in Scotland Yard," he announced. "But for now, I'll go to t'conservatory and mek that search."

As he turned to the door, a commotion broke out in the hallway. A few moments earlier someone had come in and there had been the thump of luggage on the hall floor, but I had been intent on the policeman. Now came a familiar voice.

"Body? What yer mean, Mrs Tyson? Murdered? In conservatory?"

"Excuse me, constable," I said, opening the door.

In a moment I was face to face with Tubby Winstanley, who was surrounded by his trunks and boxes in the lamplit hallway. His tweed suit slightly steaming as ever, he clambered over the trunks like a shrimper on seaside rocks.

"Anna! What's all this Mrs Tyson tells me? Bodies, what? Murdered in conservatory?"

The housekeeper was hovering behind him.

"No, sir," she answered. "Constable Wheeler and our gardener brought the poor man into the conservatory. Miss Weybridge will bear it out, sir. She found him on the sands and came here in a shocking state with the news, her and Mademoiselle."

"Yes, yes," interrupted Tubby. "Point is, what are police doin'? Ah, constable. Seein' to things, are yer? Who is he? What doin' here? Why murdered? Vital that I know."

"Indeed, sir. An' who might you be?"

In reply, Tubby presented a card. The constable's eyebrows shot up and he whistled.

"I beg your pardon, Major. Government, eh? Well, sir, p'r'aps you'd like to view t'body yourself. This way, sir."

"Come along, Anna. Come along, Mademoiselle Marie. Need both of yer."

The conservatory was a regular little winter garden. On a bench in the centre, from which the plants had been hastily cleared, lay the murdered man in a moist sandy patch. The dark evening hung close against the windows, and four candles lighted the dead, who lay awkwardly on his side, with the knife protruding from his back. Tubby glanced at his face, started, and gave a whistle.

"Well, well. Wouldn't look at face if I were you, Anna."

"I don't want to, thank you, Tubby. The back view is dreadful enough."

Marie took my hand and stared, fascinated but trembling, as Tubby expertly went through the dead man's pockets.

"Shabby genteel. Clerk or shop assistant by look of him. Pocket watch - Ingersoll, not expensive, ten-and-six model I'd say. Take note, constable. Pocket book, containin' banknotes value - let's see - ten pounds! That's a lot to find on man dressed like this. Few sovs and silver in trouser pockets. Revolver in hip pocket - note that, constable - loaded. Burglar, perhaps?" He squinted at the maker's name. "German manufacture - Mauser. Good case for Holmes, what, Anna?"

"Yes, it would be, wouldn't it?" I said without enthusiasm.

Tubby reddened.

"Sorry. Quite forgot. You and he, what?" He scrutinised me for a moment or two. "Yes. Quite forgot. Apologies, old thing."

"Please don't think about it, Tubby. Is there any sign of who this man is?"

Tubby hefted the revolver and fiddled with it.

"This, perhaps. How the devil break open?"

"It's a Mauser Zick-Zack, Tubby. The barrel opens upwards, you see. You pull that ring there."

Tubby broke the revolver open and discovered how to eject the cartridges all over the floor. The constable and he scrambled to pick them up.

"None of these have been fired, sir," said the constable, putting two or three cartridges onto the bench.

"Nor these," puffed Tubby, rising to his feet. "Mauser Zick-Zack, eh? Heard of 'em, never seen one before. You know a lot about firearms, Anna. These any good?"

"They're as good as any other," I said, "and better than many. I suppose he had it for his burglaries. But it's an unusual model to find in England, a '78 Zick-Zack. It must have been through many hands, by the look of it."

"Quite so, old girl," he said, dusting himself down. "By Jove, all those years with Holmes taught yer somethin'."

He stopped awkwardly and reddened again.

"How do you spell that name, sir?" asked the constable, opening his notebook.

"M-a-u-s-e-r," began Tubby.

"No sir, Holmes. And if I might ask t'young lady a question. Miss Weybridge, the Major here says you know about firearms. How might that be, if I may ask?"

Tubby interrupted.

"Don't see what it's got to do with case, constable, but since yer ask, ever heard of Annie Oakley, famous American lady sharpshooter?"

"I should say so, sir. I were with t'Metropolitan Force a few years back when she was in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. T'good lady and I went twice to see her at Earl's Court Arena."

"Well, she taught Miss Weybridge shootin'. That answer yer question?"

"It does, sir. You see, I thought it might be this Mr Holmes you mentioned."

"No. Holmes brother of private detective Sherlock."

"My word! Sherlock Holmes's brother? Well, if I may suggest, sir - "

"Mr Mycroft Holmes in Town at present," cut in Tubby. "Sherlock unavailable too. No, constable, yer'd best get local C.I.D. man in. No papers of any sort on this feller. Now, what about this knife? Wooden hilt. Clasp-knife, by look of things. Know what I think? Burglar, fell out with pals, pals did him in."

"That'll be it, sir," nodded the constable. "Straightforward enough, I should think, once we find out who he is. He must have travelled down here for a robbery, and I reckon that ten quid he's got will be part of his haul. As you say, sir, he'll have fell out wi' t'rest o' t'gang. Funny thing, though, why didn't they tek it once they'd done him in?"

"Took fright," grunted Tubby.

"They'll not be lingering in these parts, then," I ventured.

Tubby nodded.

"Let's have a look at this knife," he muttered.

He pulled it out. It made a horrible sucking noise and Marie took my arm and hid her face in my shoulder. I simply shuddered from head to foot.

"Now, constable," said Tubby sharply, "get back to station, wire local C.I.D. - where? Lancaster? Get sergeant to do immediately. Good feller."

The constable put away his notebook and set off. Once he had gone, Tubby turned to me, placing the bloody knife carefully on the bench beside the body.

"Anna, we've an hour or more before C.I.D. man comes on train. You an' Marie needn't stay, old girl, but vital I discover what goin' on here. Yer see, this feller no burglar. Recognised him from school, startled when saw face, perhaps yer noticed. Feller by name Carpentier, Geoffrey Carpentier."

"What?" I gasped.

"Know him do yer?"

"I should think I do. He was at Gowanburn Grange last month. He left suddenly after the murder of a Danish gentleman, and some of our party thought him responsible for it."

I moved round and looked at the face for the first time. It was undoubtedly he.

"Pockets only," said Tubby.

"Do any of his possessions tell you anything?" I asked. "The pistol, the watch, the pocket book?"

Tubby shook his head and pushed forward the dead man's possessions on the bench.

"Here, take a look. Pistol - well, yer know more than I do about that model. As yer said, strange thing to find on him, but then may have picked up when in Berlin some years back. Money - not unusual amount to find on feller of his standin', despite what I said to peeler. Ingersoll watch, common enough make, fits with clothin'. Clothes, though. Why dressed like clerk or shop assistant unless disguised?"

Rapidly I explained that Sir Geoffrey had returned in disguise to Gowanburn Grange and had conferred with Mycroft. Tubby nodded wisely.

"One conclusion - Sir Geoffrey doin' important intelligence work. Could be carryin' information sewn into linin' of coat, anywhere. Whole thing bit of a mystery. Still, don't want to waste any more time. You needn't stay, but I must go through every rag an' stitch on him."

"I'll help," I said. "Marie, you need not stay."

"No, mam'selle, if you please, I should like to help with this."

Marie and I insisted on helping Tubby to go through the dead man's clothing. An experienced seamstress, Marie examined every fold and seam of the coat and trousers that Tubby removed. We took the things out of the room while Tubby stripped the corpse of its bloodied shirt.

"Nothin' in underwear or socks," he said, looking in on us in the sitting room. "Now to examine bodily orifices. Nasty business, but steel self an' go to it."

Marie's glance at me reflected my own disgust.

"Mam'selle," she whispered as Tubby left us, "I feel in my bones that I was right to pack your revolver."

I merely nodded and we resumed the unpleasant task of closely examining the dead man's garments. As we finished, with nothing to show, Tubby reappeared.

"Nothin'," he said. "C.I.D. man here shortly, I should think. What a dashed shame Holmes not in easy reach. Once C.I.D. take over case, no hope of gettin' to truth of things."

He turned away in despair, but I detained him with a hand on his sleeve.

"Mycroft is in the vicinity, Tubby. He is with Lady Bywell."

His mouth fell open, and I told him what Marie and I had seen. His gaze flicked from Marie's face to mine.

"Good Gad! That explains why Sir Geoffrey in vicinity. Tryin' reach Holmes. Also may explain why Holmes here. Where he stayin'?"

"I don't know. They were passing the Hazelwood Hydro when we saw them, but they could be staying anywhere, of course."

"Hydro?" muttered Tubby. "Yes, of course. Holmes said somethin' about takin' the waters when last saw him. Will try there first."

"But - with Lady Bywell, yer say? Good Gad, Anna! Had no idea, old girl. What a shock for yer, and then - this, what?" He gestured at the pile of clothing. "Well, carpe diem, what? Must send gardener's boy to hotel. Find Holmes all costs. Better make self scarce, Anna. Don't want yer upset any more than yer have been. Leave his clothes with me. Must dress corpse again before police arrive."

"Major Winstanley's compliments, miss, and could you come down to the music room?"

The fat constable touched his helmet to me in the hallway, while through the conservatory door, which was open, I saw a man in a raincoat making notes. He was hard and whippet-wiry, and I guessed him to be the C.I.D. man. The corpse was now covered by a sheet. In the drawing room Mycroft was examining the blood-stained knife while Tubby again contemplated the Mauser revolver in his hand. A little heap of the dead man's things lay on an occasional table.

"Ah, Anna," said Mycroft conversationally. "How are you these days?"

His effrontery left me speechless. We might as well have been acquaintances, rather than former lovers.

"This is an interesting case," he went on, "and I need some information from you. Now, how far off the shore was the body?"

The coolness of his manner led me almost to turn and walk out of the room, but I pulled myself together and replied stiffly.

"About fifty yards."

"Any footprints? Wheel marks? Marks of dragging?"

"I never noticed. What we both noticed was the knife in his back. We then came back here as fast as possible."

"Naturally. Did it not occur to you to call at the gardener's lodge?"

"Not at all. We were both upset and frightened, so we made for the house without really thinking about it. Marie and I are not used to finding corpses, Mycroft. We don't immediately know what to do, as you seem to think. In fact, we were both nearly sick."

"I believe you. I should be surprised to learn of any woman, or women, acting rationally when finding a murdered man."

Again I quite lost my breath at his cool insolence. Mycroft went to the door and called in Mrs Tyson, who was hovering outside.

"Tell me, Mrs Tyson, is there a view of the shore from this house?"

"No, sir. You can only see the bay from the house."

Mycroft smiled at me.

"I had a walk in the vicinity of this house when I first arrived here on Wednesday. I noted the layout of the buildings, particularly the isolation of the place. Now, Mrs Tyson, what exactly did you see and hear?"

"I see. And she saw no vehicle, I suppose. Very well, thank you, Mrs Tyson. I have no need to speak to her, and shall leave her to her collywobbles. Major, I have seen and heard all I wish to, and had best go off and theorise in the depths of my easy chair." He smiled again. "You know where to find me. Good evening. Good evening, Anna."

Pocketing the knife taken from the body, he moved to the door. Tubby came to life.

"Holmes! I say! The knife, old boy. C.I.D. man will want that."

Mycroft stopped in the doorway.

"I can make more of it than the C.I.D. man will. But if he wants me, he will find me at the Hazelwood Hydro."

"I thought you were Mycroft's superior," I said to Tubby as the door closed.

"So did I, old girl. But Holmes becomin' more of loose cannon. You were always steadyin' influence - sorry, Anna, shouldn't bring it up all the time. Pity old W. H. Dalziel not with us now. He seemed to have calmin' effect on Holmes too. Now, though, with this business Lady Bywell, who knows how he'll behave?"

He put the Mauser onto the small table with the rest of the dead man's possessions.

"Halloa!" he exclaimed. "Watch missin'. Holmes taken that too?"

The muffled pealing of the doorbell in the depths of the house cut him short.

"Joanna, I think," he said. "No-one else rings like her. Better get boxes out of way."

He went into the hallway and, while he talked to his brother, Joanna rushed into the music room. In the book I was currently reading, someone was described as bursting out in her agony. Joanna burst out in an agony of exclamation marks.

"My dear Anna! How dreadful for you! Coming all this way for a rest and finding - that!"

At that moment the doorbell rang again, and I shut the door.

"Tell me, Joanna, did you not have a rather unpleasant surprise yourself just now? Did you not pass a certain Mr Mycroft Holmes as you arrived?"

I recounted the arrival of Mycroft and our sighting of him with Emmeline. Joanna's nostrils flared.

"And he's been here? Why did he come? Henry sent the gardener's boy for him? How tactless! I know Henry needed Mycroft's help, but to bring him here and let him summon you to the presence! What did he want? A few questions which he could have asked anyone in the house, I suppose."

"No, Marie and I found the body on the beach. He was probing for even the slightest detail, footprints and so forth."

"Well, the best thing to do," said Joanna, "is to get the body to the local mortuary, diplomat or not, and try to forget all about it and about Mycroft. We're here for other purposes."

She opened the door and glanced at Tubby, supervising the removal of his luggage upstairs. As he had no man, he always had to perform that chore himself. Beefy also had no man, because Joanna would not let him employ one, so her maid saw to the boxes. As I was about to go upstairs, Mrs Tyson met me with a calling card in her hand and a worried expression.

"Two gentlemen to see you, miss. I'm sure I can't make head nor tail of this name."

"Captain Walter von Christmas-Dirckinck-Holmfeld," I read on the slip of pasteboard. "Who is he, Mrs Tyson?"

"A foreigner, I imagine, miss, although he speaks English like a Christian. The other one's English. They came enquiring after someone I'd never heard of, then they asked for you. I told them it wasn't convenient, but of course I couldn't tell them we had a body in the conservatory. But they wouldn't take no for an answer, and in the end I had to give in, or they'd have seen too much when the detective came out. I've put them in the parlour."

In the cheerfully-lighted parlour Mrs Tyson had made a comfortable fire. The first of my visitors bowed over my hand in a Continental way, not French and not exactly German. A bearded man, he was not as big as Beefy, and I estimated him to be no more than three or four years older than I. The other seemed somewhat older, more sturdily built and possessed of a strange glitter in his eyes that the bearded man lacked. The bearded man did all the talking.

"Good evening, Miss Weybridge. My name is Captain Walter von Christmas-Dirckinck-Holmfeld, but you should call me Captain von Christmas. My full name is too much of a mouthful. It's Danish, incidentally. This gentleman is Mr Rudolph Strand."

For the first time since I had entered, Mr Strand seemed to notice me, smiled, and shook my hand.

"How do you do, Miss Weybridge?"

His voice was cultivated and pleasantly modulated. His clothes were of a better cut than those of Captain von Christmas. Eton, Oxford and Foreign Office, or Civil Service at any rate, I thought. The contrast between the two men was noticeable, the Captain being not only less well-dressed, but freer in his manner.

"I must apologise," said the Captain, "for calling at what seems an inconvenient moment, but we wished to see someone who, I find, is not staying here after all."

"And you wish to speak to me, Captain?"

"That was not my original intention. We're hoping to track down a gentleman whom we thought, as I said, to be staying here. A gentleman of the name of Sir Geoffrey Carpentier."

What could I say? "He's lying dead in our conservatory?" No, I could hardly give that reply, or anything like it. Whoever broke the news to these two, it should not be me.

"I can tell you nothing of him," I answered lamely.

"I see," said the Captain. He turned to his companion. "This is entirely my fault, Strand. Miss Weybridge, if you know nothing of Sir Geoffrey, do you know where a friend of yours is staying? His name is Mr Mycroft Holmes."

The blood rushed to my face and I began to stammer an explanation about the Hazelwood Hydro, but the Captain politely cut me short.

"You see, Miss Weybridge, a day or so ago I spoke to a mutual acquaintance, Lord Bywell. He mentioned that you would be here. I understand that you stayed with him in Northumberland, and I assumed that if you were here, Mr Holmes would be here also."

He beamed, but my cheeks continued to burn. So now perfect strangers were aware of my liaison with Mycroft and obviously expected us to be living in sin! Until recently we had been, of course, but that was not the point. I had not seen Stephen since I left Gowanburn, but I was annoyed that he had told this man that Mycroft and I would be in Grange-over-Sands together.

"He is staying at the Hazelwood Hydro, near here," I replied.

"That is that big hotel," went on the Captain. "But we need help with something else and I have troubled you so much that I hesitate to ask if you could provide it, Miss Weybridge."

"What is it?"

"I understand that Major Henry Winstanley will be staying here in the next few days. Could you effect an introduction for me? And as well as being introduced to the Major, I should be most grateful if you could introduce me to Mr Holmes. I learned of your friendship from a member of that club of his, the Diogenes."

So although Stephen had mentioned me, it was not in connection with Mycroft, it seemed. I felt easier for knowing that.

"I'm afraid, Captain," I said, rather stiffly, "that although I can arrange for you to meet the Major, I am no longer able to introduce you to Mr Mycroft Holmes. I was unaware until this evening that he was in the vicinity. But would you mind telling me, when you met Lord Bywell, what - how - why was he talking about me?"

"Your name cropped up in our general conversation. His lordship mentioned that he had made a most enjoyable visit to Northumberland. I must say I did not quite understand why it was so enjoyable when - "

His brow wrinkled, he glanced at his silent companion, and a puzzled expression took command of his face.

"Tell me, Miss Weybridge, is it true that murder was committed in the house where you both stayed?"

Mr Strand remained impassive. I concluded that he must already know about the business at Gowanburn.

"It's perfectly true, Captain," I replied. "That's why I'm here. I need a holiday," almost adding, "but I'm not sure that this is going to be much of one."

He nodded.

"I am not surprised, in view of what you have just told me. But it was Lord Bywell who first mentioned it. And yet, in spite of the terrible goings-on at this - Gowderburn Grange, was it? Well, whatever it was called - Lord Bywell said that he had passed one of the most enjoyable periods of his life. However he spent his time, it overcame his unpleasant memories of murder. Well, Miss Weybridge, we shan't detain you any longer. I should be most grateful if you would effect that introduction for me to Major Winstanley. I have taken a small house in the neighbourhood. Here is my address." 2

He handed me a card as he and his companion left. I went up to my room and tried to resume my book, but sat for a while gazing into the fire. So despite everything, Stephen had passed a highly enjoyable period at Gowanburn? He must have known nothing of his wife's infidelity. I was well enough acquainted with him to know that he did not relish the pursuit of crime as Mycroft did. Nor was he unmoved by violent death. How could he look back on that awful time as one of the best in his life? I remembered the morning when I left Gowanburn Grange, and Stephen had galloped up to the railway line as the train pulled out, gazing after it in the thin morning mist.

Prolonged noise downstairs interrupted my thoughts, and I went to the landing and looked over the gallery rail into the hallway. Four men were carrying a long bundle out of the conservatory, under Tubby's eye. They went with it into the night. Tubby glanced up and, seeing me, came clumping up the stairs, his tweed suit again steaming faintly.

"Well, Anna, police gone, body removed, and now that we're back to somethin' like regular business, how are yer? Good see yer again, old girl!" he exclaimed, and, unusually for him, put an arm round my waist and kissed me on the cheek. I kissed him, and, unusually again, he did not immediately release his arm until I moved slightly away.

"Tubby," I said, "someone has been here asking for Sir Geoffrey Carpentier."

"Who?"

I told him about Captain von Christmas. He quivered like a gun dog.

"Good Gad! Must get word Holmes. Good opportunity recover knife. And Ingersoll watch."

With that, he dashed downstairs, flung on his coat, overturning the coat stand, and disappeared through the door, leaving only the odour of wet tweed and Old Westminster tobacco behind him. It was only after he left that I realised there was something different about him that I had been aware of all the time, but could not describe.

The little episode drove thoughts of Stephen from my mind, and Marie came to tell me that the seam of a favourite blouse needed mending, so that I had other things to occupy me until the gong sounded for dressing.

By dinner time another guest had arrived, a young man who was introduced as Martin Frobisher Winstanley. He appeared to be a nephew to the men and Joanna, was very young and extremely well-favoured behind his horn-rimmed spectacles, and seemed rather in awe of me. He wore his dinner jacket well, and promised to be a very handsome young man once he had outgrown his adolescent gawkiness and had begun to shave regularly.

Tubby had returned and changed into black tie. It was one of the very few occasions that I had seen him in anything other than his tweeds, and I also noticed quite suddenly what was different about him. His enormous moustache was cut considerably shorter. Idly I wondered whether he had decided to make it more manageable when he turned over in bed.

During dinner he mentioned Captain von Christmas and Mr Strand.

"Saw Holmes at the Hazelwood Hydro, old girl," he grunted through a spoonful of soup. "Leave it to him. Seemed to fit some theory he's formin' re murder. Told me nothin' more. Yer know his ways. Anyway, returned knife, but hung onto watch. Very evasive when asked him for it."

"Why does he want it?" I asked.

"Lord knows, old girl. Can't see it bein' any use to him. Couldn't get it out of him, though."

After dinner, however, when Joanna and I withdrew and left the men over their port, she unburdened herself to me in hushed tones of horror.

"Anna, this business of Mycroft and Emmeline being here is dreadful! Did you know that Lord Bywell is joining us on Monday? I found out from Richard tonight."

"Oh no! And Lady Bywell?"

"She's supposed to be in Town. He's been abroad on Government business. He can't possibly know she's here. I don't understand why Mycroft is here, but for him to bring Emmeline with him is too monstrous for words."

"Mycroft mustn't know that Stephen is coming."

"Oh dear! From what Richard has told me there's something going on in the diplomatic sphere."

"So it's nothing to do with - her?"

"I can't imagine what business she would have down here with Mycroft, except to be as far from Town with him as possible. Oh, Anna, my dear, how awful for you!"

"And how awful for Stephen," I rejoined.

We drank coffee in silence until the men came in, laughing over something. Tubby sat beside me. After a few seconds I noticed that his usual aura of tobacco and perspiration had been replaced by a scent of cologne water.

"I forgot to ask you," I said to him. "Did you have a pleasant journey?"

"All better for seein' you, Anna," he grunted.

Holding my gaze with his, he stared rather pop-eyed until I began to feel uneasy. He stroked his moustache.

"Like it? Cut shorter, yer see. Do yer - do yer like moustaches, Anna?"

He was paying me more attention than usual. Although he knew of the breach between me and Mycroft, I hoped he did not know the full details of what Marie and I had discovered. Stephen had alarmed me when he poured out his soul at Gowanburn Grange. Did Tubby also intend to open his heart to me? The thought was too embarrassing to contemplate, and when Joanna asked me to play I was happy to oblige.

Joanna sang, and Beefy surprised me by joining her in a splendid baritone. Concentrating on the piano drove Tubby's odd behaviour from my mind for a while, but reminded me of the dreadful first murder at Gowanburn Grange. We finished the evening with a rubber of whist, which gave me more to think about. I was glad that Beefy was my partner rather than Tubby, who dipped into a bound volume of Punch while Martin Frobisher partnered Joanna.

Undressing in my room that night, I confided in Marie over Tubby's behaviour. She tried hard to keep a straight face while unbuttoning my dress, but in the end we both melted in laughter.

"Mam'selle, I think you will be mistaken. Perhaps the Major he always improves his deportment at Christmas. I cannot imagine Mrs Winstanley allowing him to go into dinner badly dressed, and when His Reverence and Madame Stella join us with Miss Lucy, there will be further reason for the Major to follow the conventions, no?"

Marie was probably right, I decided, as I slipped into my warm bed and blew out the candle. The awfulness of the murder lay heavily on my mind, but as I tried to clear it from my memory, a fresh thought wormed its way into my attention, and prevented me from sleeping. Why was Stephen coming, and why was I so excited at the prospect?

My poor night's sleep made me disgracefully late for breakfast. The others had gone by carriage to matins in Grange, but I quieted my conscience by promising myself to attend evensong, and enjoyed a heartier breakfast than I normally took. Afterwards, tempted by the low but bright sun, I strolled in the garden, pondering the murder, and Mycroft and Emmeline.

Marie came through the gate, singing to herself. She was very smart in her best coat, hat, veil and kid gloves, the ideal and unmistakeable lady's maid.

"Not at church, Marie?"

She was a Protestant and frequently accompanied me to services. She held up her prayer book.

"We have finished, mam'selle."

"I thought you'd have come back with Elisabeth."

"She is with Mrs Winstanley, mam'selle. They are following me."

When Joanna arrived, she suggested that we look out the bicycles in the gardener's shed. It was locked, so we sought out Esau the gardener. We went beyond the billiard room until, as we reached the stables, he hurried out of the coach house in overalls. In his hands were a tin of paint and a brush. He, too, had obviously neglected divine service. He stopped when he recognised us.

"Oh, it's you ladies. Thought it was someone else wantin' me."

"Are we disturbing you?" asked Joanna.

"No, ma'am. I'm almost finished this job."

Joanna explained our needs and he wiped his hands, shut the coach house door, and took us round to the shed.

"Bicycles, ma'am? I've got the key here."

Briskly, he unlocked the door and wheeled out two of the three cycles in the shed. They were in good shape, and had been well maintained, so we agreed to take them for a spin after lunch, while Esau returned to whatever he was painting.

"Didn't you think he wanted us out of the way?" I said as we went back to the house.

"Of course he did," replied Joanna. "He was busy with something. He'll be the odd-job man in the winter, when there won't be much to do in the gardens."

After lunch Marie laid out my cycling outfit, a grey tweed divided skirt and jacket that defied dust and rain alike. Into the saddle bag would go my waterproof cape, and I topped off my outfit with a smart felt hat by Henry Heath. The air was so remarkably mild that Marie laid out a velvet blouse. Joanna was in pale green, with an old gold belt and a tam-o'-shanter with a tartan ribbon. Elisabeth generally ensured that her mistress wore a bit of tartan, and Joanna looked as distinguished as Mrs Grenfell. 3

We set out, the clouds dodging across the low sun. It was quite unlike being in the gloom and smoke of a London winter as we pedalled along the causeway. Joanna, too, had not ridden for some time and we wished not to strain ourselves at first. We passed the spot where Marie and I had seen Sir Geoffrey's body, and I pointed it out to Joanna, for the tide was going out again. She shuddered.

"For heaven's sake, Anna, let's talk about something else. We are on holiday here, after all. Now, what about a picnic if the weather doesn't break? We could simply sit in the woods on the island."

We cycled along the main road and began to lay plans for Marie and Elisabeth to take a hamper to some sheltered spot if the weather held fair. As we turned to go home, a dog-cart came into view from the direction of the causeway. The driver had on a bright red scarf, and, as he neared, I recognised one of my visitors of the previous day.

"Miss Weybridge!"

Captain von Christmas reined in and doffed his hat to us. I introduced him to Joanna and he bowed from his seat.

"I hoped to find you at Stanerigg House," he said. "I am anxious, Mrs Winstanley, to effect an introduction to your husband, the Major."

Joanna laughed.

"Excuse me, Captain, but the Major is my brother-in-law."

"Oh dear," sighed the Captain. "I do apologise. And I still can't track down Sir Geoffrey Carpentier. He seems to have vanished from the face of the earth. Would the Major mind if I called?"

"He has gone out, I'm afraid," said Joanna, "with my husband."

She didn't say that they had gone to P. C. Wheeler's cottage in connection with the murder of Sir Geoffrey. The Captain drove on while we returned to the house, for we had gone far enough and our legs were tiring. As we neared Stanerigg House, there came another trap, this one driven by a bulky figure.

"Oh dear," panted Joanna. "There's simply no avoiding him. At least he's shown tact enough not to bring her with him."

Mycroft saluted us cheerfully.

"I've been making enquiries, Anna," he said.

"Oh yes?" I said as frostily as anyone could manage when out of breath. I was not too severe with him, for my cycling had left me feeling rather bucked up.

"Yes. I wanted to know if anyone had seen a vehicle of any sort going out onto the sands yesterday at the time you were out on your cycle. There is a slipway near the spot where you found the body, and I examined it for wheel marks. I have enquired of Mrs Tyson as to the local tradesmen and what vehicles they use. By the way, what vehicles are kept here?"

"How on earth should I know?" I replied, and Joanna shrugged.

"Did you not come in a house trap or dog-cart from the station yesterday?" he continued.

"I came by carrier," I answered. "Try Esau the gardener. He's painting in the coach house, or was when we borrowed these cycles."

Mycroft rubbed his hands together.

"Painting? Painting what?"

"I've no idea," I said with some asperity.

"It was red paint that he had," said Joanna.

"Really? How very interesting. Thank you, Joanna. Good day to both of you."

He tipped his hat and drove on. Joanna looked after him and shook her head.

"Would anyone believe that that man has just spoken to two of his former mistresses?" she said.

"I'd rather people didn't know, Joanna," I replied.

We wobbled over the gravelled drive to dismount on shaky legs at the house. Mrs Tyson met us in the hallway.

"Mr Holmes from the Hazelwood Hydro came looking for you, Miss Weybridge."

"I know. We met him on the road."

"Oh good, miss. What a nice gentleman he is. He spoke so charmingly, and took a great interest in the running of the house."

"Particularly the tradesmen who call?" said Joanna.

"Well, ma'am, he was most interested in the grounds too. Esau keeps everything so tidy and he even swept the drive clear and raked it over this morning. Mr Holmes remarked on that. You don't get much out of Esau, but I will say this for him: he looks after things. Those cycles of yours, for instance, you'd notice how well they ran?"

"They ran very well," we agreed.

"That's due to Esau. He's very handy, you know. And a letter came by hand from that foreign gentleman."

Captain von Christmas had invited Joanna, Beefy, Tubby, and me to dinner that night. Martin had been left out, and the poor lad moped about in a state of dejection. Joanna and Beefy did their best to cheer him up, but as we set off in a carriage that evening, Martin did look disconsolate as he stood in the lamplight of the front porch, seeing us off together with Marie and Elisabeth. With only the faintest pang of guilt I realised that I would miss evensong after all.

A surprise awaited us at the Captain's house. As our party gaily entered the drawing room, Mycroft rose from a chair to greet us. Tubby turned red, while Beefy's fists clenched, and once again Joanna's nostrils flared. For my part, after the initial shock, I felt nothing. All my emotions had drained from me some time before I left London, and I was the first to greet him. The rules of courtesy forced the others to speak to him civilly.

Captain von Christmas bustled about, pouring drinks for us and making us comfortable. It rapidly became clear that he knew nothing of our relations with Mycroft, and had invited him in good faith.

"As you see, Miss Weybridge," he smiled, "I have managed to make the acquaintance of Mr Holmes. I thought it only civil to invite him here. And isn't it a terrible thing about Sir Geoffrey? I learned only today, from Mr Holmes."

The feeling towards Mycroft was manifestly chilly, and poor Captain Christmas certainly noticed it, as his increasingly anxious expression made plain. But then more trouble was to occur for me. I was seated next to Tubby, and we made the usual polite small talk over the soup and fish courses. Over the main course I found myself talking to the Captain on the other side, and we agreed that we greatly admired the scenery and loved the mild climate. We ignored Mycroft, who seemed unmoved by our collective snub. The one thing we did not discuss, as if by common consent, was the murder of Sir Geoffrey.

"Of course, the mild climate is the reason why so many come here for their health, you know," said Beefy.

"Did you come for your health, Captain von Christmas?" asked Joanna.

But what he said I did not hear, for, under the table, Tubby placed a heavy hand on my knee! I moved my knee away and tried to behave as though nothing had happened, but later, over the pudding, he did it again. This time I was ready, and jabbed hard with my dessert fork. Tubby's pained exclamation attracted some notice, but he excused himself on the grounds of a spasm of cramp, and paid me no further unwelcome attention.

Once Joanna and I left the men, her outrage burst forth as she stirred her coffee in the drawing room.

"Mycroft has gone too far this time, Anna. His sheer brazen effrontery knows no limits. Surely he realises that we know he's brought her down with him."

"Yes, Joanna, he must know that Marie and I saw them yesterday. The important thing is that the men don't get carried away by their feelings. I saw Beefy's fists clench, and Tubby's face was scarlet. But, Joanna, something else occurred."

I told her about Tubby's hand. Her eyes opened wide.

"So that was why he cried out! Cramp, indeed! I'll have a word with him."

"No, my dear, for heaven's sake! I think I convinced him to behave himself. But now perhaps you'll agree with me that he is paying me attentions I don't care for. He's spoony over me."

"Spoony!" said Joanna. "My dear Anna, he's a middle-aged bachelor. Boys go spoony, not Henry Winstanley. I wonder if I could wire Lucy to come early. You know, this Christmas is proving to be so trying. What with the problems caused by Henry and Mycroft, to say nothing of that murder, we'll be lucky to enjoy ourselves at all."

Beefy and Tubby came in with the Captain. Tubby was silent and avoided my eye.

"Mr Holmes had some urgent affairs to attend to," explained Captain von Christmas. "Mrs Winstanley, I understand that you sing exquisitely, and could I persuade Miss Weybridge to play for us?"

We sang and played for half an hour or more, then finished the evening by listening to the Captain's tales of the Amazon. On our way home, I took good care that Tubby sat in the opposite corner of the carriage from me.

"Don't you think the Captain was an interesting gentleman?" said Joanna. "He'd quite a fund of tales. Un bon raconteur, as they say in France."

Beefy's smile showed in the glimmer of the carriage lamps.

"The one tale he didn't tell, Jo, was why he was chucked out of the Danish Navy."

"Really?" said Joanna. "Do you know about this, Henry?"

Tubby shook his head. He was nursing his hand and not even smoking his favourite pipe. I wondered whether my rebuff had hurt him in more than one sense, and felt guilty about responding so violently.

When we got home, I took a little stroll in the front garden before turning in and contemplated the tranquil moonlit bay. A light was on in the drawing room, the window was ajar, and Joanna's voice came clearly.

"But you will think about it, Henry? Poor Anna has been through so much with Mycroft's treachery, and I don't think she's ready for another liaison, with you or anyone else, however honourable your intentions. Mind you, putting your hand on her knee is hardly a sign of honourable intentions. That plaster should heal it, but it served you right. However, Lucy would be ideal for you, and you for her. After all, if you have children, think of what their future will be. A glittering one, if they inherit your brains and Lucy's beauty."

"As long as it's not Lucy's brains and my beauty," grunted Tubby. 4

Although I was glad that Tubby had recovered his sense of humour, I had no desire to eavesdrop further on their tête-à-tête, and quietly went back inside. Later, after undressing in my room, I put out the candle and looked out again at the quiet night. The moon was hidden by light cloud, but, as I gazed, it came out and showed a bulky figure standing in the drive, the glowing end of a cigar or cigarette revealing his idle occupation. The moon that showed him to me also showed me to him, for he turned and walked rapidly away in the direction of the causeway.

Just before I turned away, a movement in the drive caught my attention. Someone else, a tall man, was walking after the other, treading lightly as if not wishing to be heard. I leaned out of the window and watched as he stole out of sight. It looked like Esau, and I assumed that he was seeing off the unwanted visitor while returning to his own cottage. Wondering at this small but strange occurrence, I went to bed. Because of my uneasiness, I managed only a light doze, and was wakened in the night by footsteps in the passageway.

"Oh no!" I said, and scrambled out of bed to bolt the door. The footsteps, stealthy and either barefoot or in stockings, were those of a man. They passed my door, and faded along the passageway. Cautiously, and as silently as possible, I drew the bolt and peeped out. In the moonlit corridor was a slim figure, carefully holding his boots, his back to me as he crept on his way. As he turned the corner, the moonlight caught his glasses. What could Martin Frobisher Winstanley, of all people, be up to?

The next morning was mild but cloudy, and I spent it in a strangely restless mood, deliberately avoiding Tubby, and musing on the strange behaviour of Martin. He had passed my door, so therefore he had either visited his uncle and aunt, which was unlikely in the small hours, or he had been on the floor above. Surely, I thought, the mystery of what he was up to would be easy to solve, so I rang for Marie.

"Tell me, Marie, you know that flight of stairs beyond Mr and Mrs Winstanley's room? Where does it lead?"

"To the landing where there is the box room, mam'selle. Elisabeth she has her room there also, but it is a very small room. I have the better one in the next corridor on the same floor as you."

"So apart from Elisabeth, there's no-one there?"

"Only household lumber and our trunks, mam'selle. Did you want something from yours? I thought I had unpacked everything."

"No, I was merely curious."

My maid looked puzzled, so I briefly told her about young Martin.

"I cannot imagine why he should go to the box room late at night, mam'selle, unless he had left his tobacco there. Elisabeth may have heard him and I shall ask her."

I had to rest content with that. While Marie was with me, I asked her opinion on another Henry Heath, and, as we discussed it, hooves and wheels crunched on the gravel and Stephen alighted from a waggonette. Still in my hat, I went to the landing to greet him as he came upstairs. I'm sure he noticed how flushed I was, for he stopped for a moment, his own face pink, then he shook hands with me.

"How are you, Anna? I met the Major just now and he's told me about this dreadful murder. I gather you found the body. That must have been terribly shocking for you, especially after that time at Gowanburn."

He gripped my hand, holding it for a little longer than was really necessary, while his eyes gazed into mine.

"Your hat really suits you, Anna. The band exactly matches the colour of your eyes."

I blushed and could no longer meet his gaze.

"It's - it's a Henry Heath," I said, struggling for something to say.

"It's very smart, almost provocative."

"You're very early," I said.

"I stayed at Lancaster on Saturday night. I decided not to travel yesterday, but the train made good time this morning."

His man brought up the luggage, and Stephen excused himself.

"Perhaps we can meet this afternoon. There are things I should like to discuss with you, Anna, and not murders, mind."

"Yes, perhaps we can," I said mechanically, for my mind was in turmoil. I had no doubt that he wished to explain his behaviour at Gowanburn Grange, but I felt no pleasure at the prospect of meeting him while knowing that his wife was lodged along the road, sleeping with my own former lover. Nor did I fail to see the half smile which Marie gave me when I stepped into my room.

"What are you thinking?" I asked her rather sharply.

"Mam'selle, I think that hat will definitely now be part of your wardrobe."

I flushed again.

"Nonsense, Marie - I mean, of course it will, but I'd already decided on that. Come and do my hair."

We stood in the big bay window to bask in the sun which was just beginning to enter the room. That was how we saw the stranger. He was standing about fifty yards along the drive, gazing at the front of the house and smoking. He had on a soft hat and a tartan ulster which flapped about his large frame, with knickerbockers and boots for rough walking, while a pair of fieldglasses dangling from his neck caught the sun as he moved. In one hand he held a long staff, and as I looked at him he moved off.

"Wouldn't you say that was Mr Holmes, Marie?" I said as he walked away. "It's very like him. I wonder who he is."

"Perhaps a naturalist, mam'selle? He seems to be dressed for the - what is it? - rambling."

"But why was he studying this house?"

Stephen, I discovered a little later, had noticed the stranger.

"By Jove," he said to me, "at first glance I thought it was Holmes. I'd have had a few words to say to him if it had been."

I felt uncomfortable, and must have looked it, for Stephen seemed abashed.

"I'm sorry, Anna, I didn't mean to drag up my own troubles. You had enough of that at Gowanburn, and there I should never have said to you what I did."

"It was nothing," I said. "Though it did give me a shock."

He bit his lip and looked a little abashed before speaking again.

"Anna, I should not say this to you if I didn't know that you have broken with Holmes. Did you know that he and Emmeline have become lovers?"

"Yes. I found out at Gowanburn Grange just before we all left, but of course I could say nothing to you."

He nodded.

"I discovered it shortly after you left. Actually, it was a case of having my worst suspicions confirmed. I rode after you, but you were already in the train. I wanted to speak to you, though the Lord knows what I should have said. Of course, that stranger just now could not have been Holmes, for he's in Denmark on Foreign Office business. As for Emmeline, I've left her to her own devices at Richmond."

"I - I'm awfully sorry to butt in, my lord, Miss Weybridge," stammered Martin. "There's someone I'm frightfully keen to meet, and I wondered if you'd give me an introduction. I thought I saw him outside a half hour ago, but I was wrong. However," he rushed on, "Aunt Joanna's maid says that the gentleman in question is staying at a local hotel. It's a Mr Holmes, my lord, Mr Mycroft Holmes, and I thought that since you know him I - I - "

His voice died away, for Stephen's expression was one of horror mingled with wrath.

"Holmes?" he said. "Here? You mean he's in this neighbourhood, Winstanley?"

"Yes sir," replied Martin, nervously polishing his glasses. "At the Hazelwood Hydropathic Hotel, which is just a short way along the road. I - I - that is, would you be kind enough to write me a note on the back of a calling card, so that I can go and speak to him? Uncle Henry's always on about him, and - why, Miss Weybridge, you yourself - I mean - after all, you and he - "

"Have a care, man!" snapped Stephen.

"Oh gosh!" stammered Martin, turning scarlet as he fumbled with his glasses and almost dropped them. "I say, I'm awfully sorry, Miss Weybridge. I didn't mean - "

"No, Martin," I said. "You meant no harm. Lord Bywell has just told me that Mr Holmes is in Denmark. However, my lord, I can bear out what Martin has said. Mycroft Holmes is actually in this neighbourhood. He's taking an interest in the murder."

Stephen's eyes narrowed.

"Is he? Thank you, Miss Weybridge. Yes, Winstanley, I'll gladly effect an introduction for you. In fact, I'd be happy to have a few words with Mr Holmes myself."

He took out a card and scribbled something on the back, giving it to Martin.

"That will get you into the gentleman's presence. Let me know how you get on, and let him know that I should like to see him as soon as it's convenient."

Martin's eyes shone gratitude and he took his leave, floundering over his thanks and awkwardly shaking hands.

"Stephen," I said as Martin stumbled over a footstool and went away, "you sounded as though you intended to challenge Mycroft to a duel or something. You won't, will you?"

"If it wasn't illegal I think I'd have done so by now," said Stephen grimly. "Can he box?"

I decided to take the bull by the horns.

"There's something I must tell you. Will you come into the conservatory?"

We sat side by side in two of the wicker chairs. The plants had been returned to the bench where the body had lain the night before, but the candle grease still spotted the floor. I found myself tongue-tied and twisting my handkerchief between my fingers. Stephen laid a hand on my arm.

"Anna, this is something difficult, isn't it?"

"Yes," I said. "It's the most difficult thing I've had to say to you, Stephen."

How unlike Mycroft, I thought, who would merely have steepled his fingers and given me no help at all. Stephen became anxious, but I decided to plough on. I rose and turned away from him.

"Stephen, you already know about Emmeline and Mycroft. The thing is, he's brought her here."

There was no sound at all from behind me, and when I turned he was sitting rigidly, his face white. I fell to my knees beside him and placed my own hand on his arm.

"I'm so sorry, Stephen. I'm so very sorry. But I thought it best - "

"Yes, yes, Anna. You were right to tell me. After all," he went on with a light but bitter laugh, "I imagine Mrs Winstanley's maid knows that too."

I told him how Marie and I had seen Mycroft and Emmeline on the road. Stephen drew in a long breath and let it out through the fist he held to his mouth. I carried on.

"Marie will have told Elisabeth. There was really no excuse for Elisabeth to tell Martin, however, and I shall ask Joanna to speak to her," I said. "I shall also speak to Marie. I'm afraid I told Joanna myself, but that was before I knew you were coming here."

He took my hand and I did not draw it away.

"I dare say Elisabeth and Marie meant no harm," he said. "Servants always gossip, but they would hardly tell Martin about Emmeline."

"No," I agreed. "Martin is gauche, but he wouldn't have asked for an introduction had he known about Emmeline."

"But it's so damnable of the man! Holmes, I mean."

Stephen rose and turned away, his arms folded and his head down. It was at that moment that I fell in love with him. I wanted to take him in my arms, to tell him that I would gladly take the place of the unworthy woman who had deserted him, for I myself had also been deserted. But at the frosted glass door loomed a shadow, and Tubby entered as I stood up hurriedly.

"By Gad! Here you are, my lord. Never guess what's come up. Chap called to see us. That business Denmark."

Stephen excused himself and the two went off to speak to the Captain. I left the conservatory to find Joanna, for she had suggested a picnic lunch on the beach while the weather held. Picnicking at Christmas-tide felt so odd, but the weather was mild enough and it would be a little adventure we could relish. We changed into our cycling outfits to cycle to the slipway where we could make our way along the beach. Elisabeth and Marie were taking the hamper down in a smart red trap, perhaps the one Esau had just painted, with him driving. The girls had on their capes and second-best hats to wait on us.

Joanna and I meanwhile went for a short spin in the glorious winter day. We headed east along the road in the direction of the curiously named hamlet of Meathop, away from where the maids were preparing the picnic, so as to work up an appetite. There were few seagulls, and the wide vista of empty sands glistened as the tide hurried out in its endless see-saw.

"Isn't this wonderful?" said Joanna as we halted. "How wide do you think this bay is, Anna? Is that Morecambe over there?"

"I'd love to come here in summer," I said, but Joanna didn't reply. Her keen eyes were focused on the distant causeway. Along it came a dog-cart with a passenger. He had the bulking figure -

"Ah!" said my friend. "It's that stranger who was outside the house earlier. My goodness! He does look like Mycroft. And I thought it would be Captain von Christmas."

"So did I," I said. "Now I remember, Lord Bywell thought Mycroft was in Denmark on some business. Captain von Christmas did want to see him - Mycroft, that is. Why is Denmark the link between them? Is it something to do with what went on at Gowanburn?"

"I don't know, but it's nothing to worry us," replied Joanna. "Come, let's turn round and go down to the beach. The girls should have everything ready by the time we get there."

We were ready to do justice to our picnic, for the fresh air was giving us an appetite.

"You look a lot better at any rate," said Joanna as we passed Esau's lodge. "I'm glad you came down with us. I'm so much looking forward to Lucy's arrival so that we can set things in motion between her and Henry. I meant to tell you earlier: I told him last night of our plans."

"How did he take it?" I asked, pretending surprise.

"Amazingly well. I'm afraid I dragged you into the conversation, and told him to stop paying you unwelcome attention. I think your fork made up his mind for him, though. Why are you laughing?"

"Oh," I said, "I was woken last night by footsteps and thought it was him outside my room."

"And was it?"

I told her about Martin. Joanna looked puzzled.

"Now that's very strange. What could he be up to? What rooms are at that end of the corridor?"

I explained about the box room.

"Marie thinks he must have left something in his trunk that he wanted badly during the night," I concluded. "Tobacco perhaps."

Joanna shook her head.

"He doesn't smoke. Anna, I'd love to know what is happening here. People creeping about the house, bodies in the conservatory - "

"And now perhaps you'll agree that Tubby's gone spoony."

"After our little contretemps yesterday evening, he's more forky, I think."

Laughing, we reached the slipway but had to halt for the dog-cart that had left Stanerigg House some minutes earlier. The driver had stopped and was blocking the slipway while through his fieldglasses he seemed to be making a close inspection of part of the coastline. He saw us and bowed from his seat.

"You don't need bicycle bells with that lovely laughter, ladies."

The accent was unmistakeably American, but the figure was so like Mycroft's as to be virtually a caricature. He swept off his hat and bowed again.

"Alexander B. Richardson at your service. And you are Mrs Winstanley, I guess, so you must be Miss Weybridge."

"Quite correct," said Joanna. "Though how you know us both is a mystery."

"Well, ma'am, I merely took note of your wedding ring, and as for knowing who you both are, you were pointed out to me as you left Stanerigg House not long ago. You were cycling towards this very road, so I guess I wasn't too surprised to meet you on it."

"Then you are the gentleman who met Lord Bywell and my brother-in-law Major Winstanley?"

He bowed again.

"They tell me I look like a friend of yours. He's staying at the same hotel as I am. There is a slight resemblance between us."

"Mr Holmes has many friends, Mr Richardson," said Joanna coldly.

Mr Richardson looked shrewdly at both of us and nodded.

"And some friendships don't last as long as others, eh? Well, I'll have to be getting along. I enjoyed meeting with you and I hope you enjoy your cycling."

He lifted his hat and drove on, and we rode down the slipway to the beach. As we pedalled over the firm wet sand, we saw Mr Rudolph Strand on the road above us. He, too, had a pair of binoculars and was training them along the coast. He seemed flustered to see us, bowed and walked off with his head down.

"I wonder if he's another naturalist," I remarked.

Joanna looked back, wobbling dangerously.

"If he's a naturalist, then homo sapiens is what he's interested in," she said.

I glanced back. Mr Strand was training his glasses on the distant figure of Mr Alexander B. Richardson. Shaking our heads, we headed for the gaily striped canvas wind-break that the maids had erected. At that point the Captain drove along the road at speed in his dog-cart. He had on his bright red scarf and we watched him dash along the road until Mr Strand stepped out and stopped him, got into the vehicle, and drove off with the Captain.

Beefy now appeared riding furiously on the third bicycle, and accelerated away down the road in the direction of the Captain's distant trap.

"What on earth - ?" said Joanna. "Oh, let's put it out of our minds. I'm starving."

The maids had everything set out when we gingerly rode along the wet sands not far from the pier. Something had animated them, for Elisabeth was flushed and giggling while Marie was sitting on a rock with both hands pressed to her mouth and her eyes wide.

"I'll bet they're telling rude stories," said Joanna disapprovingly as we dismounted and pushed our machines to the windbreak.

The two pulled themselves together and ran to meet us, taking our machines and standing respectfully as we seated ourselves on the rugs they had spread.

The picnic passed pleasantly, for the canvas screen kept the wind from us. Little grey and white clouds trundled across the sky from the Irish Sea, but no rain threatened us. A small yacht came into view in the channel running through the bay, otherwise the coast seemed to be deserted.

As the maids cleared away the things, Joanna and I sat idly chatting and watching the little yacht as it veered about in the channel that was left by the departing tide.

"Why don't they simply go in a straight line?" asked Joanna. "That boat's been zig-zagging about for the past half hour without going anywhere."

"Perhaps they're fishing," I said.

"Madam," said Elisabeth, handing Joanna a large brass telescope which she took from a cylindrical leather case.

"Oh, wonderful!" exclaimed my friend at the gleaming instrument. "Where did you find this, Elisabeth?"

"In the wee box room, madam. I took the liberty of putting it in the hamper."

Joanna applied it to her eye and studied the yacht.

"They seem to be making for the shore now. Let's go up onto the pier over there, Anna. We may see better."

Joanna led me to the pier which gave her a better view of the yacht. Our maids finished packing the hamper. I heard Marie's shriek of laughter and glanced back. She was hanging onto her friend with a hand to her own mouth, while Elisabeth was holding the long telescope case upright and indicating some point about halfway up it as if measuring.

"Those two are being silly today," I said.

"They're young and enjoying their holiday," said Joanna, turning to the yacht. It swung round and something splashed over the side.

"They've dropped anchor," said Joanna. "Halloa, there's someone coming across the sands. Anna, I do believe it's Captain von Christmas. Here, see for yourself. Look at his bright red scarf."

Although I could not make out the Captain's features, his bright red scarf was unmistakeable even at that distance. A small boat put out from the yacht and headed for him.

"By Jove!" said a voice behind us. "Just in time."

Mycroft, in wide-awake hat and cape, puffed his way along the pier where Joanna and I were standing. He trained a pair of silver-mounted fieldglasses on the little scene along the sands.

"About a mile," he said as if to himself. "Highly unlikely that they'll recognise me at this distance, and all the better that you two ladies are with me, or appear to be. With luck we shall pass for tourists. Anna, my dear, would you mind spreading that charming blue and yellow parasol of yours? Thank you. Now if you would open and close it in the pattern I shall dictate to you. Let me show you. Short and long, like this, you see."

He opened the parasol for short and long intervals, then handed it back to me, turning his attention to the yacht again.

"Turn round and point it at that patch of woodland," he said, and then, while studying the yacht with his back to me, he proceeded to dictate a pattern of long and short openings. The person to whom I was signalling remained invisible among the trees. Since I have no knowledge of the Morse Code, the content of the message I sent was a mystery, but Mycroft seemed satisfied. From the trees came a reply, the flickering of a mirror or some polished object. Mycroft stared hard and muttered, "Very well, if that's what he wants. That should do it, anyway!"

"That's done it, all right," I said crossly, for the ribs of my good parasol had jammed and I couldn't close it properly.

"Never mind that," replied Mycroft. "I must get back to the hotel at once."

Lifting his hat to us, he set off along the pier.

"Isn't that just like him?" said Joanna. "He makes use of you, ruins your parasol, doesn't deign to tell us what he's doing, and goes." She raised the telescope again. "The Captain has disappeared. No, there he is in his red scarf, going back along the beach. The small boat is back at the yacht. I wonder if they're smuggling."

"Mycroft wouldn't be interested in simple smuggling, Joanna. Damn this parasol! I suppose Esau can mend it. I wonder what message I sent just now, and to whom."

"Richard, probably. He must have gone into the woods. That would be him signalling, but with what? His cigar case, perhaps. I'll try to find out in bed tonight. I generally do. Is there anyone up there now?"

She scanned the woods with the telescope.

"Our trap's coming," I said, pointing to where Esau was driving along the road. Mycroft stopped the gardener as the trap approached him. Meanwhile, Marie and Elisabeth carried the hamper and the rolled-up windbreak to the slipway, Joanna and I hurrying from the pier to follow them.

All at once our maids broke into cries and began waving at the gardener, who was helping Mycroft into the trap. Whipping up the horse, he drove Mycroft at high speed towards his hotel, leaving Marie and Elisabeth hallooing in his wake.

"Well!" was all Joanna said.

Esau did return for us as we all tramped back to the house. The four of us struggled with the hamper on my saddle and the windbreak on Joanna's while we pushed the machines along the causeway. Esau was very apologetic, but explained that the gentleman had said it was most urgent that he get to t'Hazelwood Hydro, ma'am, and his business couldn't wait, for it were Government business, and besides, he paid very well. As he finished, another trap came tearing towards us from Stanerigg House, the driver shouting a greeting to Esau.

"Now then, Ichabod," said Esau.

In the trap, Tubby saluted us but said not a word. He was puffing furiously on his meerschaum, the blue feather of smoke trailing behind him as he headed for the main road.

"There's something up," said Joanna as we mounted our machines and pedalled off, leaving the maids and Esau to get the hamper into the trap. "Ah, here's Lord Bywell," she said as our tyres crunched over the gravel before the front door. "Here's someone who isn't rushing about on urgent Government business."

Stephen, standing by the door, smiled.

"I've finished my Government work for the moment, Mrs Winstanley. But your husband and brother-in-law seem to be very much occupied at present. You can blame your friend Captain von Christmas for this, for the Major spent several minutes roundly cursing him while waiting for the trap. But what he's done is as much a mystery to me as to you. Personally, I think it's to do with the murder. Mrs Tyson had to send the boy for a trap from somewhere along the road. Poor Major Winstanley would have burst, I think, had he waited much longer."

As Joanna went upstairs, Stephen detained me for a moment.

"Anna, I wondered whether you would care to come for a ride tomorrow. I've got only a couple of horses, otherwise I'd have asked Mrs Winstanley too, but I dare say you don't really need a chaperone."

He looked anxiously at me for a moment.

"Yes," I said. "I'd be delighted."

Tubby returned late with Beefy, both very quiet and conspiratorial. It seemed unlikely that Joanna would get any information out of her husband in bed, no matter how hard she tried. Beefy had always seemed very naïve about women until Joanna married him, and I sometimes wondered if she had passed onto him what Mycroft must have taught her of the art of love. She was a very beautiful woman, and it was obvious that Beefy was deeply in love with her. However, even love would not break the barrier of Government secrecy where the Winstanley men were concerned. Mycroft was like them, for there had been many occasions when I had tried to worm information from him, but I had learned not to bother. If he did not wish to tell me, he would not.

My reminiscences unsettled me, and I repaired to my room until I felt better. Marie brought me some hot chocolate but seemed a little down in the mouth, and I asked her why.

"Oh, it is nothing, mam'selle. It is just that the gardener, Eyesore, as Elisabeth calls him, he was most unpleasant today. When Elisabeth and I put the 'amper into the trap, we scratched off the tiniest bit of paint, and he went on something cruel. Elisabeth said it was the fault of whoever painted red over yellow. He should have painted yellow again. But he did go on, mam'selle."

After dinner I took a little stroll in the front garden. The moonlight was bright, and my wrap kept off the chill. As I passed the small shrubbery I distinctly heard the rustle of clothing.

"Who's there?" I called.

The rustling indicated that someone was swiftly stealing away. I was not far from the house, but I was alone and the door was shut. The rustling faded, and I hurried back inside where I heard people on the first floor. Upstairs, I found Tubby and Beefy finishing their cigars in the gallery and chatting quietly before turning in.

"Some fellow in the shrubbery?" repeated Beefy. "Then let's see to it. You'd best stay here, Anna - but, no, it's pointless telling you."

The three of us went downstairs and out into the moonlight. Needless to say, we found no-one, but Tubby declared that he would send word to Mycroft first thing in the morning. In the meantime, no-one was to go anywhere near the shrubbery, Mrs Tyson being called to impress that instruction most carefully on the servants before they turned in. With that, we all went to bed, and I'm sure I was not the only one who locked her bedroom door that night. I even slipped my revolver under the pillow, blessing the forethought of Marie in bringing it.

In the morning Mycroft drove up bringing with him a small cocoa-nut mat.

"I had the Major's note first thing," he explained. "It will be a simple matter to examine the ground in the shrubbery."

We were interested, and Martin in particular followed him closely as we went to the place where I had heard our nocturnal visitor.

"Keep well back, Martin," rapped Tubby. "Now you'll see expert at work, eh, Holmes?"

Mycroft smiled quietly and, spreading the cocoa-nut mat carefully on the ground, took out his lens and lowered himself to his knees. The next moment he rose, puffing, snorting and swinging an empurpled face on us. Even Tubby and Beefy stepped back, braced for an outburst of wrath. They were not disappointed.

"What's happened here?" he roared. "Despite your clear instructions, Major, someone has obliterated every footprint in the area!"

"But - but," spluttered Tubby, "been most careful. No-one allowed into garden. Domestic staff told off most particularly."

"Look!" commanded Mycroft, pointing dramatically at the ground.

We all crept forward and gazed at the ground, where there was nothing but a patch of churned-up mud.

"Every footprint gone," said Mycroft bitterly. "What a fool I was not to anticipate that."

"Now, Mycroft," said a new voice. "Don't get into such a temper."

We all turned. Before us stood someone whom I did not recognise for a moment, until Joanna said, "Lucy!"

But it was not the Lucy I had last seen. Then, as we returned to England after our ordeal in Switzerland, she had been pale and silent, her eyes dark hollows, her shoulders hunched and her demeanour one of abject misery. Now her beauty had returned and she had something of her old sparkle, but the empty gaiety seemed to have left her. She embraced her sister and then stopped short at sight of me.

"Anna! My dear, how lovely to see you again."

She hugged me and I was happy to return her warm greeting.

"I'm so glad to find you well," I said. "So Joanna wired you after all."

She had not. Lucy herself had decided to come early, all the way from Galway. She had not travelled alone, she told us.

"I crossed from Ireland with two friends, the Ross-Lewin sisters. We parted company at Heysham, as they are to go into the North-east. They are from a most respectable Church of Ireland family and we had a very pleasant journey."

That was the first signal that Lucy had changed. If the respectable Misses Ross-Lewin accepted Lucy, then far from merely turning over a new leaf, she must have bought a whole new book.

"Now, Mycroft," she laughed, "what are you doing? Gardening at this time of year?"

Mycroft inflated himself for another outburst, then thought better of it and smiled. He was in the company of three women whose lover he had been, but for all the effect it had on him, we might as well have been waitresses.

"Well," he said, "perhaps it is pointless to pursue what I wished to pursue. You will have much to talk about to your sister and brothers-in-law, so I shall take myself and my mat away."

With a bow, he left. Lucy turned to me.

"Anna," she said quietly, "I'm so glad to see that it's all been a silly rumour."

"What has?"

"What I've heard about you and Mycroft."

"I'm afraid it's true, Lucy."

Her face fell.

"Oh, my dear, I'm so sorry. But then what is he doing here?"

Joanna explained and Lucy stared in amazement.

"A corpse in the conservatory? Good gracious, Joanna! What sort of Christmas holiday is this?"

Still talking, she went inside with Tubby and Beefy. Joanna drew me aside.

"I'm saying nothing about Henry. I'll put the idea to her tomorrow."

"As long as Tubby does nothing precipitate," I said.

"Things are bad enough," agreed Joanna. "But Henry has his hands full of the murder. To have it hanging over us will probably dampen the proceedings with him and Lucy."

"On the contrary," I replied. "Lucy will help us to take our minds off the murder."

We took Lucy for a short walk, carefully avoiding the entrance to the drive where the Hazelwood Hydro stood among its woods. We made our way down to the beach, walking along to where Joanna and I had watched the Captain meet the yacht. Lucy was acquainted with some of the events of our stay, and listened with interest to the details that we supplied. We told her of the Captain, Mycroft, and the strange behaviour of Mr Richardson and Mr Strand.

"This murder," she said. "Has it anything to do with what Mycroft was looking for when I arrived?"

"We don't know," said her sister. "Mycroft is saying nothing, Anna can't be expected to speak to him now, and I'm certainly not going to treat him with anything more than the barest civility."

"Well, I shall speak to him," said Lucy determinedly. "Sebastian and Stella arrive on the twenty-eighth. I can hardly allow them to walk into the kind of danger you seem to be shrugging off. I shall ask Mycroft to explain himself."

"What?"

"Oh, don't worry, Joanna, I don't mean to pry into what's going on between him and Emmeline. We know perfectly well what's going on there. But we all have a right to know exactly what danger we may be in. Nocturnal prowlers, bodies on the beach! What kind of place is this?"

We walked on for a while, Lucy seemingly rapt in thought. At length, as we climbed back up the cliff path, she turned to us again.

"I'd like to send a wire. I suppose I'll have to go to the station."

"To wire Stella?" asked Joanna.

"Not quite as far," said Lucy, but offered no other explanation as we made our way home. After lunch she disappeared in the direction of the village.

For the afternoon I changed into one of the new riding habits for ladies, breeches covered by a short skirt, for I was determined to ride astride rather than side-saddle. When I reached the stables, Stephen was up on a spirited-looking stallion, Rowley, and I was given Finnegan, a quiet gelding. Together we left the yard and headed along the causeway, turning off onto the deserted main road.

"Would you mind very much," I said, "if I removed this silly skirt? I'm wearing breeches underneath."

I strapped my skirt behind my saddle.

"You wear jodhpurs extremely well," said Stephen, showing great approval so that I felt myself blushing and spurred my horse forward. "You look as well as you did in Ireland. I hope you don't mind my saying these things, Anna, but you know how much I admire you. As I said yesterday, my conduct at Gowanburn was unforgivable, but my admiration for you is something for which I shall never apologise."

"Stephen, you shouldn't say these things to me."

"Why on earth not? You deserve them."

"You're a married man."

"We both know what that has come to mean, Anna."

We went down the slipway to the sands and rode on in silence, until Stephen remarked that a sea fog had begun to roll in.

"It's not much," he continued, "but we shall have to be careful and take the road if it gets worse. There are patches of quicksand in this bay."

We rode nearer the road. There was the sudden shriek of a passing train and a couple of loud cracks quite near. Rowley reared, rolled his eyes, and shot away like a rocket. With a couple of kicks from me, Finnegan broke into a gallop after Stephen, who was frantically pulling at his reins. Rowley was out of control, terrified by the sudden train whistle and the bangs, and was carrying his rider towards the distant tidal channel.

Finnegan caught up and I seized Rowley's bridle, hauled till my arm nearly left its socket, and brought us all to a halt. Stephen dismounted, quite pale.

"What were those bangs?" I asked.

"Fog detonators on the railway line. With the train whistle they really startled poor old Rowley. Thank you, Anna. You've just saved my life."

"Oh, come!" I replied.

"Watch," he said, and threw a pebble at the patch of wet sand in front of him. The sand shivered, and the pebble sank out of sight.

"As I said, there are quicksands in the vicinity, but I didn't think I'd nearly ride into some."

He steadied Rowley. I dismounted and joined in, patting the horse and whispering nonsense to him until he stopped quivering and blowing.

"He's all right now," said Stephen, then he took me in his arms and kissed me fully and hungrily. I did not resist; quite the opposite. When we broke apart, both of us flushed and panting, we knew that what we had begun would end in bed. We said nothing, as there was nothing that we needed to say. I reached out and squeezed his hands. He kissed mine, and we looked again into each other's eyes. It was merely a question of where and when. I was ready for him to take me right there on the sand, in the swirling wraiths of fog.

A distant scream startled us both. It was a human cry, cut off short in an unnatural manner.

"Over there!" said Stephen, pointing in the direction of Holme Island.

We remounted and set off for the island. The tide rushed in, and it really did come in fast. There was hardly any warning before the first low wave was upon us out of the fog. We heard it hissing over the sands and saw a glassy grey sweep of water hastening towards us. It was about a foot high and spread as far as we could see through gaps in the fog. We turned to flee, but it caught us and swirled round the horses' hocks as we galloped for the slipway. As we splashed onto the safety of the slipway, the next wave rushed up the stonework after us. When we reached the causeway the swirling mist was thin and patchy, and in a clear gap we could see a twisted figure lying on a sandbank at a distance from us. The rising tide washed around it, but it lay very still as the foam creamed about its head. I sucked in a quick harsh breath. Round the neck of the dead man was a bright red scarf.

"My God!" I said. "It's the Captain."

I could not tear my eyes away from the broken figure being rolled back and forth by the rapid current of the incoming tide. A patch of fog swept over the scene and hid it.

"We can get down here," said a familiar voice, and then, in surprise, "Hullo, Anna. Ah, good afternoon, my lord!"

Beefy was trotting along the causeway through the thickening mist. Behind him lumbered a man in a cape and a wide-awake.

"Holmes!" said Stephen, glaring at Mycroft.

Mycroft seemed momentarily disconcerted, but carefully followed Beefy down the side of the causeway, while I rode back to the house as fast as the fog would let me. I did not put on my skirt again, and caused a minor sensation as I ran through the door with the news.

The tide came in so fast that some fishermen had to get a boat out and row for the body. Beefy, Stephen and Mycroft stayed on the shore and directed the boat with flares and whistles. Esau was sent for P. C. Wheeler, and eventually most of our household, including some of the servants, assembled on the causeway and awaited results. It was then that a cheerful voice spoke and Captain von Christmas strode up to us. My own astonishment was equalled by his as I explained what had happened.

"Red scarf, you say?" he said. "Yes, it probably is mine. Oh, the poor fellow!"

Without another word he hurried off along the causeway. I ran after him, only to stop at a cry from behind me.

"Mam'selle! You cannot go out in those breeches. Here is your skirt."

Marie ran up to me, one of my skirts carefully folded over her arm.

"What will the villagers think, mam'selle? Remember the Irish priest."

Scolding incessantly, she made me put on my skirt over my jodhpurs. Captain von Christmas had vanished into the fog, and I decided to wait until they brought up the poor fellow who had lost his life. In the meantime I explained to Marie what had happened.

"Mon Dieu! But there they are on the slipway, mam'selle. The fog is breaking, and is that not Mr 'Olmes? Even at that distance he is unmistakeable. The fishermen have the poor man in their boat."

They unloaded the body onto the slipway and put it onto a hurdle. Marie and I hurried along the causeway and met the sad little procession, the doctor at its head, Beefy helping to carry the hurdle. Stephen and the Captain followed with Mycroft some way in the rear. The body was that of Mr Rudolph Strand. He was wearing a scarf identical to that belonging to Captain von Christmas.

"It is my scarf," said the Captain as I joined him. "He complained of a cold in the throat and borrowed it when I met him on the road. Poor fellow. I wonder how he came to die. I must get it back somehow."

They took the body to the doctor's house. By now half of Grange was following. Mycroft went in after paying off the village men who had helped. The Captain left us, muttering about his scarf.

"Seen Jo anywhere, Anna?" asked Beefy, strolling over. "I say, do you know what Holmes thinks of this business of the dead chap? Murder again. Strangled, he says. So that's two now. What a Christmas!"

We all returned to the drawing room of Stanerigg House in mixed moods. Marie and I were sombre, but Tubby and Beefy were brighter than they had been the previous night. Martin, who had not been with us, and had been apparently studying on his own, listened to their talk, a textbook neglected at his elbow. Mrs Tyson served tea, the setting sun playing on the shrubbery outside the drawing-room window. At length Mycroft entered. Tubby crossed eagerly to him, while Stephen moved away.

"Well?" said Tubby.

"Oh, he was murdered without a doubt," said Mycroft. "Someone strangled him with his own scarf. Of course, by the time we got him out of the sea, any trace of a struggle had been washed away."

At that moment the maid announced the rotund P. C. Wheeler. He interviewed all of us in turn, losing his indelible pencil, having to sharpen another, and leafing through pages in his notebook. At length the constable left, saying something about the coroner. With that, we prepared for a sombre Christmas Eve dinner. Mycroft left, and Tubby kept up a flow of brittle small talk that prevented us from asking him anything at all.

Lucy had returned after it grew dark, and listened with rounded eyes to the story of the latest death. When we ladies withdrew after dinner, she was eager to learn more, but we were interrupted by a chorus of singing outside the front door.

"Carol singers," said Joanna. "We are fairly isolated here, and with us not being local people I think the vicar must be getting us out of the way first, so to speak."

We went into the hallway, where we found the men with Mrs Tyson and the servants in the open doorway. The singers stood in a half circle outside, some of them with instruments and lanterns.

"How very Dickensian," Stephen whispered to me as the singers began the traditional carol, Adam lay ybounden.

"Don't be sarcastic," I whispered back. "It's lovely."

"I'm not trying to be sarcastic. It always brings a lump to my throat. But it's not Dickens I'm thinking of after all. Have you read Thomas Hardy's Under the Greenwood Tree?"

I knew the episode to which he was referring. Tears started as I remembered that my copy had been a present from Mycroft one Christmas. Stephen pressed my hand, and I returned the pressure and drew closer to him. Suddenly there was the rumble of wheels, and a moment later a huge figure shouldered its way through the singers from behind. The carol ceased, the fiddles squalled, and the concertina wailed like a trodden-on cat. The singers reeled out of the way, sheet music scattering and a lantern falling in a tinkle of breaking glass.

"Apologies," gasped Mycroft as he thrust his way into the hallway, "but this is a case of extreme urgency. Merry Christmas, by the way."

He all but shoved Joanna out of the way and disappeared into the library. Tubby followed him. Outside, a vehicle clattered away as the vicar and the singers picked themselves up and recovered their poise. Joanna hurried forward, full of apologies, and invited them in. As we made way for them she turned to me.

"Anna, I think that you'll look back on this period as a timely escape from Mycroft. He's worse than I've ever known him. Fancy pushing his way through like that! It must be the influence of Emmeline. I can't think why he's taken up with her. I think his judgement has become seriously affected. In fact, if that's the case, then Henry must exercise some caution over whatever conclusions Mycroft comes to. I mean in connection with the murders."

Mrs Tyson began to serve mulled wine and spice cake. Lucy helped, her eyes alight with pleasure. I thought back to the summer, when she would have turned up her nose at such simple enjoyments as these. Stephen and Beefy were laughing over something with the vicar, and Martin, flushed as though unused to wine, was chatting to Elisabeth and Marie. It was nice to see him coming out of his shell a little, for he seemed a shy and awkward lad. I should have been happier if we had had a young lady guest of his own age as company for him, rather than our ladies' maids.

The choristers, having finished their wine and cake, struck up again, but got through no more than three bars before a great bellow from within the library caused them to falter. They had scarcely recovered when the door was flung open by Mycroft, who appeared on the threshold and glared with bloodshot eyes and scarlet face at them. They faltered to an embarrassed silence.

"Thank you all so much," said the vicar hurriedly. "We'd better be going now. A happy Christmas to you all. I trust to see you at Holy Communion."

Mycroft's stony glare followed them out of the house. The concertina let out another miserable wail as its player stumbled through the door. Joanna indignantly turned to Mycroft and began to say something, but the slamming of the library door cut her off.

"Well!" was again her only comment, as she turned to us, hands on hips and mouth open in amazement.

Stephen and Beefy looked at each other and shrugged.

"Don't just shrug," I said. "Mycroft's manners are appalling all of a sudden."

"I know why," said Stephen. "It's not just this latest murder. It's something in the diplomatic sphere which he's concerned with, and which is proving such a knotty problem for him."

"But he normally solves problems with ease," said Joanna, warming her hands at the hall fireplace. "Why should he be so irritable over this, whatever it is?"

"You've heard of the Schleswig-Holstein question?" asked Stephen, while Beefy smiled and nodded as one who knew what was coming next. "Well, this is in a way connected with it."

Beefy coughed loudly.

"All right, Winstanley," smiled Stephen, "I shall say no more. But if you ladies know how much trouble the Schleswig-Holstein question caused diplomats in England, Germany and of course Denmark, then you'll appreciate that, for once, Holmes is in deeper waters than even he would readily admit." 5

"I thought it was the two murders he was investigating," said Joanna.

"Oh, he is," said her husband. "They're all connected, this diplomatic thing and the two deaths, together with the murders at Gowanburn."

"In what way?" I asked.

"Holmes knows," said Beefy. "However, we can't say any more than that, my dears."

At that moment Mycroft appeared at the library door and summoned Beefy and Stephen to join him.

"Now," said Lucy as the men went into the library and Marie, Elisabeth and the housemaids disappeared with Mrs Tyson, "come back into the drawing room and I'll read you a telegram. If what Richard said about the murders is true, about them being tied up with the diplomatic business, then I think I may have part of the answer."

Curious, we settled ourselves into comfortable chairs and Lucy produced a long telegram form.

"The men needn't think that they know all the answers to our little mystery," she said, and began to read the telegram.

It was from someone at Reuters' in London. Joanna and I listened carefully, and, although I did not fully grasp the implications, I knew that Mycroft was caught up in an intrigue of tremendous significance. I was simply glad that, this time, I should not be involved. There would be no alarums or excursions for Anna Weybridge. My revolver would remain in the drawer of the tallboy and the most exciting thing that would happen to me would be perhaps helping Lucy and Tubby on the path to tying the knot.

Lucy had wired her journalist friend, who I suspected was an old flame, for any current information in regard to Denmark. He had forwarded the text of an interview sent to the New York Herald for publication that morning. A distinguished Danish political editor had announced that the German government seemed interested in buying three small Caribbean islands belonging to Denmark.

"Is that all?" asked Joanna. "Why should Mycroft be driven to despair by that?"

"Oh, that's not the end of it," said Lucy. "You see, two of the islands have large deep harbours, just right for a fleet of battleships."

"What of that?" I asked.

"The Americans don't want the German navy in the Caribbean," explained Lucy. "If they build a canal through the narrowest part of the Panamanian Isthmus - "

"Where?" I asked.

"That stringy, narrow bit of land between North and South America," said Joanna.

"That's it," said Lucy. "Well, if they build a canal through that, the United States expect to control it. But if Germany were to get a base in the Caribbean, there could be friction and war in no time."

"As almost happened in Samoa in '89?" asked Joanna.

Lucy nodded. I sat gazing at her in admiration. This was not the empty-headed and foolish woman I had first met in August. She was in command of her topic and spoke with authority. Her sojourn in Galway with her sister and brother-in-law had changed her remarkably.

"Yes," she said. "Germany and the United States nearly went to war in the South Seas six years ago. Only a timely typhoon stopped the ships from fighting. But, according to my informant, Denmark will not sell her Caribbean islands to Germany. The Danish government is far more likely to grant them their independence, since they cost Denmark money. If that happens, and because most of the islanders speak English, they'll almost certainly seek a protectorate from us."

"And that will cause trouble," said Joanna.

"Of course," replied Lucy. "The United States will invoke the Monroe Doctrine and we could eventually find ourselves at war with them. There was a lot of ill feeling about the Venezuelan dispute earlier this year, of course. That Mr Roosevelt was involved, whom I believe you know, Anna." 6

I knew nothing of Venezuela, but one thing struck me about the conversation. Throughout, while I had sat almost gasping in admiration at Lucy's clear-headed explanation of a difficult political matter, Joanna had treated it as though she expected nothing else from her sister. Dimly, I began to comprehend that Joanna knew of the change in Lucy and perhaps - perhaps - Lucy had been recruited into Tubby's Department.

Now the proposed union between Tubby and Lucy made sense to me. Hitherto, I had entertained doubts about the wisdom of linking the two. Tubby needed a helpmeet in tune with his intellect, and, to my surprise, it seemed as though in Lucy he would get one.

Something else occurred to me.

"Mr Richardson!" I exclaimed. "He's something to do with the American government, then?"

"Almost certainly," replied Lucy, putting away the telegram form. "Well, girls, now that things are starting to make sense, what have the murders to do with the political issue?"

"We'll have to wait and see," said Joanna. "But thank you, Lucy, for explaining the politics to us."

The men reappeared for cigars and brandy, all except Mycroft. He left quietly, and apparently in a genial frame of mind, according to Stephen.

"The crisis must be resolved, then," said Joanna. "I wonder if he's deduced who the murderer of Mr Strand is?"

The Winstanleys drifted together, and Lucy regaled them with family news from Ireland. Stephen and I found ourselves in each other's company again. We recounted the incident with his horse. By mutual unspoken consent we never mentioned the second murder, nor did we touch on what had happened just before we heard the scream. Suddenly he changed the subject.

"Anna, there is one thing I must tell you, but I wish you would come with me somewhere to talk privately."

I tingled. He had "talked privately" with me at Gowanburn Grange and caused me to rush out of the room. He divined my thoughts.

"No, don't worry. I have no intention of saying anything foolish. But I must speak to you about something that touches me very closely."

"Well," I said, glancing round at the Winstanley group, "the folding doors are open. We could slip through as long as we lighted the candles in the other room."

We did that in an instant, and stood within sight of the others. For the sake of appearance he picked up an album of photographic views of the area and opened it. He wouldn't have deceived anyone, except that the Winstanleys were thoroughly engrossed with Lucy.

"What is it?" I asked, for he was suddenly shy.

"Anna, I don't wish to burden you with my troubles, but I - it's Emmeline. She - she and I are no longer living as man and wife, Anna. And - and - there's worse."

"I know," I said as evenly as my voice would let me, "there's Mycroft."

"How much do you know?"

How I longed to fall into his arms.

"Too much, Stephen."

I could never tell him what Marie had seen in the billiard room at Gowanburn. The Winstanleys were laughing at some private family joke, and Stephen lowered his voice and moved closer to me.

"They - " he began, "they've been - she's been giving herself to him for weeks. It began at Gowanburn Grange."

I laid a hand on his arm.

"Stephen, I'm so very sorry."

"Anna, I need to be with you alone. Could we - could we go to look at the Christmas tree?"

We slipped out and, ignoring the tree in the parlour, went up to his room.

"Oh, Stephen!" I said, and kissed him. We spent a long time in each other's arms.

"How did you find out?" I whispered.

"I put two and two together the day the house party broke up, and I taxed her with it. She immediately admitted it and has hardly spoken to me since. She has been giving herself to - to him - every night."

His voice broke and I held him close.

"I want you," I said.

We went to bed together. Used as I had become to the expertise and invention of Mycroft's lovemaking, Stephen was a shock. He disappeared into the dressing room, while I undressed in the bedroom. I climbed into bed naked, as had been my wont with Mycroft, to find Stephen returning in night-shirt and even a night-cap. He was equally astonished by my nudity, as Emmeline and he, it turned out, had never seen each other in the nude.

Once he was in bed with me I whipped off his night-cap and entreated him to undress. He did so, reluctantly at first, but on my embracing him his arousal became evident. Unable to control himself, he mounted me and, all too soon for my liking, reached the height of his enjoyment, heaving and gasping, "Anna! Anna!", long before I was ready to share the pleasure.

As I held him he began to shake. I thought he was laughing until I felt his tears on my shoulder.

"Stephen!" I whispered. "What is it, my darling?"

He sobbed his apologies.

"I haven't enjoyed conjugal rights with Emmeline for so long, Anna. I couldn't restrain myself. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."

I held him and kissed him lovingly, rolling him over so that I was on top.

"Don't worry, darling," I said. "We have all the time we want."

"I want you, Anna," he replied, and, as he moved against me, how much he wanted me became obvious again. I sat astride him and took the lead, and we pleasured each other until I collapsed almost senseless upon his still shuddering body.

We slept awhile, then, both waking at some time in the night, we enjoyed each other again. He was aware of his gaucherie with me, for in the still dark morning of Christmas he said, "I've never learned how to - how to - Dash it! How can I put it? You see, Anna, Emmeline never behaved like you. She never removed her night-dress. She'd just lie back, completely unresponsive. It was more a duty than a pleasure, for both of us."

I explored his mouth with my tongue, rousing his desires again so that for a fourth time we made love. I'll wager Emmeline never kissed you like that, either, I thought, as we lay drowsy and contented in each other's arms. My mind went back to what Marie had told me of Emmeline in the billiard room at Gowanburn. She had certainly been responding to Mycroft with enthusiasm, according to my maid. But Stephen and Mycroft were possessed of different personalities, and clearly, in Mycroft, she had now found someone who could bring out her dormant sexual longings.

Before we got out of bed he seized me and held my gaze with his, the faint gleam of his eyes meeting mine in the dark.

"Anna," he said, "I want you as my wife."

"I want nothing else, but Emmeline will never consent to a divorce," I said.

"I shall divorce her nevertheless!" he declared. "And till then we shall be man and wife in the sight of heaven. But what am I saying? I'm as much in the wrong as she. I've just committed adultery in the same way as she has. And I've led you into it with me."

"I did it willingly with you," I replied. "But remember, Stephen, if you do divorce her, no-one will receive you. Society will ostracise you. If Lord Bywell divorced his wife to marry a common sometime actress, what would his friends say to that? You've told me about the odd sneer since they put Oscar Wilde in jail, and that's just because you were friendly with him. What would they make of me? If we do it, all doors will be shut to you, and, worst of all, your career in Parliament will be finished."

"Common actress!" he exclaimed. "Anna, don't think of yourself in that way. You are a paragon among women. You are admired wherever you go. And as for Parliament, it can do without me."

"You can't, Stephen! Don't sacrifice your career."

"I shan't give you up. We will leave England and travel as man and wife," said Stephen stubbornly.

"Where, for heaven's sake?"

"Europe. We shall be known as plain Mr and Mrs Mandeville. But at all costs, you must be mine!"

"Wait!" I said. "There is something you must know, and if it changes your mind, then so be it."

And as he lay listening, I told him, hesitantly and with tears, about the child I had had to Mycroft, the child who had died. I finished, buried my head in his shoulder, and wept. I expected him to reject me in horror at what I had said, but he tightened his hold on me and held me till the fit of weeping had passed.

"My darling," he said, "what you have told me makes no difference. But I shall write to my solicitor and request an affidavit that I have not had conjugal relations with Emmeline since long before we went to Gowanburn Grange, and that any child born to her from now is not mine. And any born to you will inherit my name, if I have to move heaven and earth."

"There's more," I said, and told him of my time in the Diogenes as W. H. Dalziel. To my surprise and delight, he roared with laughter and kissed me again.

"What a woman you are! Who else knows of this? Of course I shall say nothing, but you are not the first woman to do this kind of thing. There were some who served as soldiers in Britain, and in America as recently as the war between the States. But how delightful that I have in my arms a spirited woman who has done much the same."

"I'm glad you've taken all this so well. I really don't think I'm worthy of you, you know."

"Rubbish!" he snorted. "Anna, are you trying to say that you'd rather not go any further?"

"No. I've been in love with you since we talked in the conservatory. I almost assailed you yesterday just before poor Mr Strand was murdered."

"Assailed me?"

"You know. Leapt upon you on the sands."

"Good Lord! I wanted to do the same to you. I say, what a scandal there'd have been if Holmes and Winstanley had found us."

"There'll be another if the servants find us in bed together," I replied, getting up, lighting the candle and hastily flinging on my clothes of the night before. We could hear the maids making up the fires downstairs, and soon they would bring up hot water for the handbasins. Marie would have already found my bed empty. I knew she would say nothing, even to Elisabeth, for I had enjoined on her no further discussion of my affairs with her friend.

"Merry Christmas," I whispered, kissing him, and, slipping out into the dark corridor, went to my own room.

There was already a ewer of scalding water on the washstand and a lighted candle on my dressing table. After my exertions of the night I decided on an early bath, and rang for Marie to run it. When she entered, she avoided my eye and said little. Afterwards, as she was helping me to dress, I asked her, "Was it you who brought in the hot water this morning?"

"Yes, mam'selle."

"You saw, of course, that I was not here."

"Mam'selle, it is none of my business."

I took her hands.

"Marie, I require your complete discretion again, and I know I shall have it."

"Of course, mam'selle."

"You don't approve, do you?"

Her head went down.

"Mam'selle, as I have said, it is not my business."

"But it will have to be. Lord Bywell and I - "

Her hands flew to her mouth, her eyes wide.

"Mam'selle! His lordship?"

"Who did you think?"

She began to laugh.

"Mam'selle, excuse me. I thought - the Major."

Shaking helplessly with laughter, we fell into each other's arms, the tears streaming down our faces. I gave Marie her Christmas present, a pair of kid gloves, and she gave me mine, a charming pendant which I am wearing as I write this.

At breakfast Stephen and I could not meet each other's gaze. We sat as far from one another as possible, the very thing to do when one wishes everyone else to speculate that one is in an affaire de coeur. After breakfast we all went to church in Grange by carriage, servants and all, except for Tubby, who had gone we knew not where. I sat with Joanna and tried to be a model of decorum, fully expecting to be struck down at the altar rail as I took the sacrament, but the thunderbolt was reserved for the journey back to Stanerigg House.

As we passed the entrance to the wooded drive of the Hazelwood Hydro, a woman who was hurrying down the drive hailed us. She was in her Sunday best, but her dress was disordered and her hat was coming away from its pins as she ran. She bustled up to the carriage containing the domestics.

"Oh, ma'am!" she gasped at Mrs Tyson. "Oh ma'am. Such a dreadful thing!"

"Mrs Entwhistle!" exclaimed our housekeeper. "Whatever is wrong?"

"Mr Holmes, ma'am. Murdered. Dead. Lying this very minute in the doctor's surgery, cold as clay."

She turned out to be the housekeeper of the hotel. At first we didn't believe her. Nonetheless, we drove along the road to the doctor's, and on alighting were met by the errant Tubby, whose face was the very model of horror.

"Gad!" he spluttered. "Dreadful thing, what? Holmes murdered in woods last night, awful state. Body in mortuary back doctor's premises. Anna, don't go to see yet. Terrible. Must wait till doctor makes fit be seen. Oh God! What a way to go."

Tubby leaned on the doctor's gatepost for support. By now my heart was hammering, and Joanna was white-faced.

"Henry, this can't be true."

"'Fraid so, old girl. Seen body meself. Dreadful, dreadful. Don't let Anna see. Don't go in yerself, for that matter, not till properly bandaged up and made decent."

"Tubby!" My own voice shook. "What happened?"

"Difficult know exactly. Seems to have been attacked - head completely smashed in. Awful sight. Unrecognisable."

I sank down and was faintly conscious of someone supporting me. I came properly to my senses in the doctor's surgery, with the doctor holding sal volatile under my nose. Joanna was in another chair, looking very ill with Beefy supporting her.

"It's true enough, Anna," said Beefy. "I've just been to view the body. Tubby went with me but as he says, it's difficult to identify him for sure. I thought it might be Richardson, but I understand that Richardson has been seen out and about."

"Mycroft has a birthmark," I said feebly. "Let me see him, and I'll know."

I looked at Joanna. She stood up shakily, as did I.

"We'll go together, Anna," she said.

Beefy helped her, and the doctor supported me as we went through a passageway to the small mortuary. At the door, Joanna suddenly sank down into her husband's arms, shaking her head. So I went in with the doctor and Tubby.

The huge corpse was sheeted. When I uncovered his face, I cried out. His head was so completely bandaged that hardly any part was visible. His skull was horribly smashed. I could not be sure that it was Mycroft, and I felt a surge of hope. If there was no birthmark, then it must be Mr Richardson. My hand shook so that I could hardly grasp the sheet, but I raised it and exposed his hip. There it was, the small blue rose-shaped mark that very few people had seen.

I came to in the surgery again, the taste of strong brandy on my lips.

"I've got some strong sweet tea coming, Miss Weybridge," said the doctor. "But I think you're not fit enough yet to be interviewed by Constable Wheeler, so we'll get you home in the trap, you and Mrs Winstanley."

While I drank my tea a closed carriage drew up outside, and from the window I saw someone get out and come into the house. There was a long interval, then a murmur of voices, and at length a woman hurried out holding a handkerchief to her eyes, and got into the carriage. It was Emmeline.

I don't remember what happened in the next few minutes, but I became aware that Beefy and Tubby were holding my arms. I was shouting like a fishwife, and the doctor was hovering with some cordial.

"Anna, Anna," came Joanna's voice. "Please don't make a scene. Not over that woman. Please, my dear."

Crying, I sought her arms, and they got us into the trap and back to Stanerigg. The rest of that day, Christmas Day, is a hazy memory. They put me to bed, where I lay in delirium.

Boxing Day and the day after passed in a blur of weeping and fitful sleeping. Stephen came to see me and sat for hours holding my hand. Marie did likewise, trying not to weep, but I saw nothing of Joanna. She too had fallen into a deep fit of depression and spent some time in bed. The doctor came regularly and gave me sedatives, and by Saturday I was well enough to go downstairs. There I found a subdued party welcoming Sebastian and Stella, newly arrived from Ireland. Joanna was there, looking as dreadful as I knew I did.

"My dear Anna!" said Stella, embracing me warmly. "We've heard everything. Oh, my dear, this week must have been almost unbearable for you."

"He giveth, and He taketh away, yet His name shall remain blessed," said Sebastian. I found it impossible to agree with that sentiment, but made no reply.

Mycroft's body had been removed to the morgue in Lancaster. It was needed for examination by Scotland Yard, and an inspector was already in the neighbourhood. Although everyone seemed anxious to keep the details of Mycroft's death from me, I insisted on knowing. The doctor had given me so many sedatives that I no longer felt any emotions. Tubby took me to one side, with Joanna and Stella for company, and hesitantly gave me the story.

"Early Exmas mornin', old girl, Esau brought urgent message from Wheeler. Dashed over, found major commotion Esau's cottage. Body found in hotel woods by groundsman, unrecognisable. Wheeler been to look, said looked like Holmes but head all smashed in. Heart sank, dashed up with Wheeler while you at church, found body as described, recognised Holmes' clothin'. Got him away and into mortuary. Doctor examined, body been in woods all night. Found some of Holmes' things in pockets. Desolated, old girl - there, there. Don't take on."

With a friendly paw he patted my shoulder, while I sat and sobbed. Stella and Lucy came and comforted me, and Tubby slipped away. By lunchtime I felt that I could eat a little, and determined that I would talk the whole business out of my system. So, despite attempts by the others to confine the conversation round the table to small talk, I got onto the topic of the murders and the other mysteries. It then seemed that others wished to talk it out as well.

"Don't you remember?" I asked. "Mycroft never found out who had been in the shrubbery. And he didn't seem to know who'd rubbed out the footprints."

"The murderer, of course," said Joanna.

"But is there only one?" I asked.

Lucy, who had sat mainly silent, suddenly took up the conversation.

"Joanna, do you remember Mycroft saying something to the effect that he should have anticipated the footprints being rubbed out? I hadn't much idea of what was going on then, but I remember him saying that."

"Yes," said Stephen, "just before I left you, he did say something about what he'd found the night before. Winstanley, old man, try this wine. It's really first rate."

Martin had said absolutely nothing until then, but as Stephen spoke, he started out of a reverie and flushed.

"Thank you, my lord," he stammered as Stephen filled his glass, then, seeming to screw up his courage, he plunged on. "I - I - I must say, I don't think what happened in the shrubbery - I mean, the fellow who was prowling about, was all that important."

Lucy laughed.

"My dear boy, if you'd known Mycroft Holmes as well as we did, you would realise that if he thought something to be worth following up, it's of the utmost importance."

"Why don't you think it was important?" asked Joanna.

Martin turned bright red again, his glasses slipping down his nose a little.

"I - I mean, Aunt, it probably wasn't anything connected with the murder." He pushed his glasses back into place. "It may have been a - a burglar or a poacher or someone."

"Or carol singers," smiled Stephen. "No, I agree with Miss Alnford-Ross. At any rate, let me tell you something of what's going on. You must not reveal a word of this to anyone. I'm telling you merely to inform you about events in this neighbourhood."

We all nodded solemnly.

"On Christmas Eve," continued Stephen, "an article was printed in the New York Herald. The subject matter sounds pretty boring, but I can assure you that it could lead to war with either the United States or Germany."

"Gosh" said Martin quietly. "What was it, sir?"

It was merely the business of the Danish West Indies, which was old news to some of us. Stephen told us no more than Lucy had done, but he explained the Monroe Doctrine.

"This is the American declaration that no European country should expand its possessions in the New World. The United States is of course exempt, and has bought the southern Mississippi basin, as well as Alaska, and has conquered all the former Mexican territory north of the Rio Grande."

"That's true," put in Lucy. "The Monroe Doctrine is a barrier to European powers, but an aid to the expansion of the United States. I imagine that the United States will oppose the sale of the islands to anyone other than themselves, especially now that they're talking of building a canal through the Panama Isthmus."

"Correct," nodded Stephen. "As it happens, I doubt whether our Government is interested in the Danish West Indies. Other powers, though, could be interested."

"But," said Joanna, "what has all this to do with the murders?"

"Our Danish friend, Captain von Christmas, is the link," said Stephen.

"You mean he's the murderer!"

"Good heavens, no! He has no tendencies in that line. But he came here to make an approach to Holmes about the possibility of selling the islands to our Government."

"Are they his?"

"He claims to own four fifths of the property and land on one of them, St John, and he's trying to act as a broker between the Danish government and ours. He's suggesting that the waterfront of Coral Bay Harbour, St John, should be completely purchased by either the Government or a big shipping line. They would do this piecemeal, and go on until the entire island had been purchased. It would then be transferred quietly from Danish rule to ours." 7

"Or if we didn't buy it," said Lucy, "then to anyone who would."

"Quite so," said Stephen. "If I may say so, Miss Alnford-Ross, it's a pleasure to find ladies who understand politics as well as some here."

"Lucy, please," said Lucy. "Not Miss Alnford-Ross, my lord."

"Ah," said Stephen. "Then Stephen will do."

He looked at Lucy in a way that made the hairs on the back of my neck tingle. She smiled at him so that my blood began to boil. I caught Joanna's eye.

"Yes," said Joanna. "But, my lord, as it happens, we all understand the politics of this business. Don't we, Anna?"

"Yes," I said, "and I think, Stephen, that Germany is the country that Lucy had in mind."

Lucy looked at me, her nostrils flaring for a moment in the danger signal that her sister employed. Joanna spotted the sign.

"Anna and Lord Bywell have been friends for some time," she said.

Suddenly, I realised that, somehow, Joanna knew what had happened on Christmas Eve. She knew that Stephen and I had spent the night together. Stephen was saying something else as the maid came in with the dessert.

" - the Imperial Chancellor, Prince Hohenlohe; the German Foreign Secretary, von Bülow; and some Under-Secretary chap, a Baron von Richthofen. They're decidedly interested, and they think they can get the director of the Hamburg-Amerika Line to put up the money to buy the island piecemeal as I've already described. Then there'll be a quiet transfer of sovereignty to Germany and a German naval base in the Caribbean by the beginning of the twentieth century." 8

"Gosh, sir," said Martin, "that'll be a keg of powder in the diplomatic world."

"A stick of dynamite, rather," said Lucy. "It doesn't matter who buys them; any two of the trio of Whitehall, Washington and Berlin will be most upset."

Stephen looked approvingly at her.

"My word, Miss Alnford - er - Lucy, you certainly have a grasp of politics. What a pity they won't give women the vote. You'd make a tremendous impression in the House as a lady M.P."

I got that sort of frozen tingling that you get in your stomach and chest when you suddenly realise that your world is starting to turn upside down. I had made passionate love to this man. He had sworn to take me as his wife. Now he was smiling at Lucy as he poured coffee, for we had finished our dessert, although I had eaten mine without noticing it, and could not even remember what it was. Nor could I recall the rest of the lunchtime conversation, but afterwards, when we broke up, Joanna hurried over to me.

"Anna, don't worry. Henry knows now what's expected of him concerning Lucy, and, now that you're a lot better, we'll put things into action this very evening. I'm sure that Lord Bywell was merely flirting harmlessly. Lucy is very attractive, of course."

She certainly was. Her interest in politics now alarmed me, for Stephen was passionate about the political world, while I knew next to nothing about it. Even when writing up this account, I had to get the spellings of the names from Tubby.

"You know about us, don't you?" I asked her.

"Yes, but never ask me how. Call it the intuition of our sex."

That evening after dinner we gathered in the sitting room. We should have been playing charades, but the death of Mycroft hung heavily over us. We were all at a loss, and the atmosphere reminded me of that at Gowanburn Grange just before the house party broke up. At length the doorbell announced a visitor, none other than Inspector Athelney Jones of Scotland Yard. He was wearing the grey suit which he favoured, and which he had surely worn when I first met him some years back. His face was a little more red and puffy around the eyes, but they twinkled as keenly as ever. How wonderful it would have been if intelligence had been the source of the twinkle. Tubby rose to meet him.

"Good evening, Major," said the inspector. "I promised I'd come as quickly as I could, and here I am. A shocking business, this. Mr Straightfellow is almost demented by the news, and I never thought I'd live to see Mr Mycroft Holmes come to an untimely end, never."

"You didn't see it," grunted Tubby. "Nobody did. That's why we've called you in."

"And you did the right thing, Major," said Jones. "I've got an arrest coming up already."

"Who?"

"The obvious suspect, of course. The man of mystery whose strange behaviour points to his being the murderer. You told me about him yourself, Major, when you first wired me and we then had that long-distance telephone conversation."

Tubby wrinkled his brow.

"Only person I mentioned was - good Gad!"

Jones smiled complacently.

"That's right, Major. Our American friend, Mr Alexander B. Richardson. The only person whose movements you yourself can't account for. You may well look startled, Major. Richardson is the sort of criminal only an experienced detective like myself can - er - detect."

"Yer've arrested him?"

"No, but I have men coming from Lancaster by rail, and as soon as they get here, I'll lead them to the Hazelwood Hydropathic and make the arrest. Softly, softly, catchee monkey, eh? You see, if I simply went myself to make the arrest, he might slip from my grasp. I'll throw a cordon round the hotel first, then we've got him no matter what dodge he tries."

At that point I excused myself to retire to my room. I had no desire to hear the boastings of Athelney Jones. I had witnessed that gentleman's detective efforts some years previously, in the Lyceum murder case. As I mounted the stairs, Tubby shot out of the room and hissed after me.

"Anna! Listen, old thing. Beggin' a favour. Are yer up to bike ride? Get bike from shed, cycle like hell - beg pardon! - to hotel" - here he scribbled a note furiously and put it into an envelope - "drop this at reception desk and get away before police arrive."

"Couldn't Esau go?"

"No - no! Must keep quiet about this."

"What about Beefy or Martin?"

"Beefy gone out - er - call of nature, I think. Martin not - er - available . Joanna not feelin' too grand. Please, Anna. Need yer help desperately."

The night was quite balmy for the time of year, but there was the threat of a change in the weather as I cycled to the hotel. My acetylene lamp threw a wavering pool of feeble light onto the road, but the moon was a better guide and companion. I had hastily changed from my evening gown, and Marie had insisted on my taking my little revolver. She had wanted to come, but I forbade her. It was not far to the hotel, and the pistol in my pocket gave a strange comfort as my machine whirred along.

The Hazelwood Hydropathic Hotel lay at the end of a long, wooded drive with an upward gradient. Owls hooted and things rustled in the undergrowth as I panted uphill, but the lights of the hotel were cheerful and I dropped in the note at the reception desk. The ride back down the drive was much easier, until I found myself lying on the road and wondering what had happened.

I was hardly hurt, apart from a graze or two, but I was certainly bewildered. What could I have struck in the road? A tree branch? A boulder? I got to my feet and found a length of rope looped round my machine. One end was tied to something, and it had evidently been stretched across my path. There were running footsteps behind me, but before I could turn, a rough hand grasped my cape and yanked me backwards.

"This is her!" said a voice I knew, but could not place.

The button at the neck of my cape gave way and I slipped out of it, turned, and saw the face of Esau. He was snarling. Even by moonlight his features were clearly distorted with hatred. He snatched at me again, but I dodged, hitched up my skirts and ran.

Someone ran hard into me and I went down, completely out of breath and half stunned. Strong arms pulled me to my feet, and before I was breathing properly again I had been bound and gagged.

"Where shall we put her?" said Esau.

The two picked me up between them and carried me across the main road, over the railway footbridge, and down to the slipway. By now I had recognised the second man as Ichabod, whom I had seen occasionally driving a trap in the neighbourhood. What else he did I had no idea. The two, although not saying much, said enough to tell me that I was to be left tied on the sands while the tide was out. Ichabod was carrying a shotgun slung over his shoulder.

They dumped me by a post and went away. They had not searched me and had failed to find my revolver, but that was of little use since I was trussed hand and foot. They had gagged me with my own scarf. For a while I heard their voices as they walked away, then there was silence, broken once by the scream of a passing train.

Gradually I became aware of a gentle susurration in the distance, scarcely above a breath but never stopping. It was the tide coming in at the speed of a galloping horse. As yet it must be far out in the bay. Frantically, I began to squirm along the sands, eventually deciding to roll towards the shoreline, every moment expecting to sink into a patch of quicksand, but terrified to remain still, for all the time I could hear the gentle hiss of water racing over sand. The moon showed a widening glimmer in the distance, spreading in my direction.

A single shot echoed through the woods near the hotel. It was the smack of a twelve-bore shotgun, such as Ichabod had been carrying when the two of them had caught me, and both barrels had fired.

Nothing more occurred, and I continued my struggle to get clear of the incoming tide. My revolver dug into my thigh every time I rolled, and I was afraid that it might go off. Covered with sand and seaweed, my hat lost, I sat up and looked back. The glimmer of water was much nearer, a long low crest rushing towards me. I was exhausted, but there were voices and lights. Women's voices came closer, moonlit figures appeared on the sands, and the beam of a lamp swung towards me.

"Mam'selle!"

Marie ran up carrying a cycle lamp, the beam bobbing erratically around and onto me. Someone behind her turned out to be Joanna, and then I heard Tubby shouting in the distance, but Marie was already at work on the knots which held me. Swiftly my friends untied me, and then we all raced for the slipway, the tide hurrying behind us. We reached safety on the sea front as the first wave of the incoming tide splashed up the base of the slipway. Marie shone the beam of her lamp upon me and shook her head.

"Mam'selle, what has happened to you? We missed you, and the Major he got worried, and so we came out for you. What have they done to you? You are a frightful sight. Look at the state of you."

The lamp and the moon confirmed Marie's words. My white blouse was filthy, my skirt a ruin, my jacket torn, my stockings holed.

"Henry will not hear the last of this," added Joanna, apparently through clenched teeth. "Fancy sending you out on such an errand. Richard could have gone. Good heavens! I only hope that Lucy will take him thoroughly in hand."

Tubby was still shouting somewhere in the distance, and I also heard Beefy and Stephen, then the powerful voice of Sebastian and the voices of Stella and Lucy.

"Shouldn't we let them know I'm found?" I asked.

"Oh, they're after Esau," said Joanna. "Inspector Jones's men are here now and searching the woods near the hotel. We heard the shot. Marie and I were looking for you on the beach by then, and you cannot guess what thoughts went through my mind, Anna. Luckily Marie thought of bringing a cycle lamp."

"The Major he is up on the road with Mr Winstanley," explained Marie, "and we agreed to look on the beach."

"Because Henry thought we would be less trouble if we kept out of the way," said Joanna. "I think he expected to find you either at the hotel or on the road. Did you meet Mr Richardson?"

"No," I replied. "I left the message at the desk."

"Apparently Mr Richardson turned up at Stanerigg after you had left, although I didn't see him. He feared some sort of attack or attempt by the two ruffians who assaulted you. Did you realise he is a Pinkerton's detective? It was he who proposed the search party for you, once he realised that Henry had sent you to find him. He surmised that Esau and his friend would follow you. But I don't know where he is now."

"Esau is the murderer?"

"So it would seem, together with Ichabod, according to Henry. But what's that?"

Further along the sands, on a bank where the tide had not yet come in, we could hear shouting and see police lanterns. The moon showed distant figures running in the direction of the incoming tide. Lantern beams flashed hither and thither. Suddenly everyone stopped, so suddenly that some seemed to fall over. There was much shouting and gesticulating, and a concentration of lantern beams on one particular spot, but we could see nothing distinctly.

We made our way back to Stanerigg House, the rising tide lapping round the causeway as we reached the grounds. Marie saw to both Joanna and me, hustling me off to a hot bath and a hot drink. As I climbed out of the bath I heard Tubby and the others arrive.

"We chased Esau till he fell into quicksand, old girl," said Tubby. "Pulled him out, Jones arrested him, took him off to police station."

"Ichabod?"

"Got him too. Fired on police, they gave chase, ran him down in woods. Thing is, old girl, Jones on completely wrong scent almost till the last. Richardson innocent. Had to warn him to get away. Esau panicked, followed you with Ichabod, gave selves away. Even Jones realised."

"Why on earth didn't you send Richard, Henry?" scolded Joanna. "If I'd known you were sending Anna, I should have stopped it at once."

"Beefy out of room at time, seein' man about a dog, what?" said Tubby in some embarrassment. "But never thought Esau and other chap involved in all this. Gad, to think I got Ichabod to take me Hazelwood Hydro meet Holmes and Richardson. Holmes himself got Esau drive him hotel. No wonder Esau knew what goin' on. Most remiss of Holmes to make error like that. Why devil didn't tell me, though ..."

"But not surprising," said Joanna quietly to me. "Poor Mycroft was not himself once he got entangled with Lady Bywell."

Sitting in a comfortable armchair, I leaned back and savoured being alive and safe. I had to recount everything that had happened to me, and learned that Esau and Ichabod had planned some attack on Mr Richardson, who had apparently deduced that they were the murderers of Sir Geoffrey and Mr Strand.

Sebastian, who had remained silent after his earlier outburst of thanksgiving, now spoke up.

"Their names immediately aroused my own suspicions," he boomed. "For what woman would call her son a name that means 'the glory is departed'? That is the meaning of Ichabod. And Esau is not a name of choice among the devout, for was it not Esau who sold his birthright for a mess of pottage? I thought it odd, and sought out the local clergy. It appears that young Martin had done the same thing, for he, too, thought the names peculiar. He said as much to Holmes, and you believe, do you not, Henry, that it was the names that gave Holmes reason to begin suspecting them."

Tubby nodded while tamping down a load of Old Westminster. I asked where Martin was. Joanna took a long breath, her expanded nostrils giving the danger signal that I knew so well.

"I'll tell you tomorrow, Anna. We've had enough trouble for one night, I think."

It was past one and I insisted on getting to bed. Marie excused herself to see to something that Joanna wanted, and I realised that I had seen nothing of Elisabeth. Joanna, accompanying me to the stairs, seemed abashed when I mentioned the absence of her own lady's maid.

"I've sent her to her room," she said at length. "Oh, Anna, you may as well know, although I felt it wiser to say nothing to you till tomorrow. There's been the most dreadful scandal. We discovered it tonight, which is why Marie and I were late setting out to look for you."

A loud rap at the door interrupted her.

"It's the police," I said, for a tall silhouette was visible in the moonlight shining through the frosted glass. We opened the door, I saw the visitor, and once more exercised my well-practised skill of fainting.

"Absolutely irresponsible!" Joanna was saying as I came to. "To play such a deception on us in this way, and then to reveal it to Anna, of all people, at such a time of night. Have you any idea what that poor woman has been through this Christmas? And you, Henry, are just as bad, conniving in the whole business. As for you, Richard - "

"Now hold hard, Jo," said Beefy. "I was as much in the dark as you. I thought he was dead."

Stephen, to my surprise and pleasure, was supporting me with his arm as I lay on the chaise longue, while Marie was gently rubbing my wrist.

"All the same, Holmes," said the quiet voice of Stephen, "you should have known better. I can understand your wish to be thought dead, in order, as you say, to escape the attention of the gang, but for heaven's sake, man! Anna has just escaped with her life this very night."

He gave Mycroft an indignant glare and left the room. I was fully awake now, and Mycroft, immaculately dressed in opera hat, tails and white tie, was standing on the drawing room rug.

"So the body," said Lucy, "was that of Mr Richardson? Anna, my dear, are you better now? Try to sit up a little."

"Now," I said feebly, "before I do go to bed, can someone tell me what's happened?"

It was Tubby who began, lighting his pipe again as he did so.

"Remember Herr Anders at Gowanburn Grange? Murdered over will. But real business there was diplomatic, pavin' way for sale Danish West Indies to Britain via good offices of Sir Geoffrey Carpentier. Thing was, old girl, once Anders died, negotiations fell through till von Christmas got wind of 'em Copenhagen. Holmes knew von Christmas willin' broker deal re Danish West Indies an' any government interested buyin' 'em. Von Christmas expected commission on price of between five and seven million US dollars. Von C tried London. Knew not much happenin' end of year, also knew Holmes to be repository of Whitehall information. Practically is British Government when Parliament in recess."

Mycroft took up the story.

"The possibility of a sale of some or all of the Danish West Indies has been rumoured in Whitehall for a number of years. It was inevitable, I suppose, that someone would sound out the British Government, and equally inevitable that I should be involved because of my knowledge of Whitehall affairs."

"Von C hoped Holmes had enough influence," said Tubby, "to sway Foreign Office in favour buyin' islands. What he didn't know was other agents interested in his activities. Strand, for instance, sent to keep eye on von C."

"By our Government?" asked Lucy.

"Berlin, old thing. Mr Rudolph Strand actually Herr Rodolph Ludwig Strand. Von C completely unaware - thought him one of our civil servants. Kept eye on von C with view upsettin' any negotiations between him an' Holmes. But American Minister Copenhagen, one Risley, got wind of it and wired Henry Cabot Lodge, Washin'ton senator. Cabot Lodge sent Pinkerton's man - Richardson - investigatin'." 9

"That explains," said Joanna, "why they seemed constantly to be spying on each other. But tell me, Henry, why and how did Strand die?"

Tubby shifted in his chair and sent up a cloud of foul blue smoke. Joanna started pointedly wielding a fan, but she does this every time Tubby smokes, and he takes no notice.

"You know, Holmes," he said, and once more Mycroft stepped in.

"I must go back to the arrival of von Christmas. Once I knew of him, I decided to avoid him in Town if at all possible. That was one reason for my trip to Lancashire, along with the need to speak to Sir Geoffrey, and not for - ahem - other reasons."

"But you brought Emmeline," I said sharply. He did not even change colour.

"No. She brought herself. She travelled down after me with only her lady's maid, a most discreet young lady, and arrived at the Hazelwood Hydro calling herself Mrs Holmes."

He seemed unconcerned at the outraged exclamations and gasps from Joanna and me, as well as the raised eyebrows and mutterings elsewhere. Joanna tried to say something, but succeeded only in leaving her mouth wide open.

"I could not expose her," went on Mycroft, "without causing a scandal which would result in my immediate ejection from my very comfortable quarters. Equally, I could not put her in the unenviable position of revealing her true identity."

I sniffed, Joanna frowned, and Lucy shook her head. The gentlemen shifted uncomfortably and muttered again, but Mycroft ignored us all and carried on.

"I arrived on the Wednesday before Christmas, and Emmeline came on the Thursday. While I expected to remain undisturbed - on the Thursday, that is - I took a trap and drove round the vicinity. I noted Stanerigg House, but never for a moment did I dream that you would be arriving to stay there. I had no idea that the Winstanleys would spend Christmas in Furness, and even if I had, Stanerigg House would not have come to mind as their temporary residence.

"My tranquillity was shattered, first, by the sudden arrival of Emmeline. Secondly, by the murder of Sir Geoffrey Carpentier. Finally, by the unexpected appearance of Captain Walter von Christmas-Dirckinck-Holmfeld. Apparently Sir Percival Blakeney, of the Diogenes, knew where I was and told him. The Captain was most insistent that I hear his scheme to sell at least one of the Danish West Indies to our Government. He even invited me to dinner. Had I known that you would also be there, I would have declined."

Tubby sucked on his pipe.

"Complicated business, old boy. Yer see, Anna, unknown to us at time, third party involved. Seems third party somewhat confused as to who was doin' what and believed Strand to be agent of Holmes. Holmes observed Strand on beach Monday when Joanna an' you had picnic. Strand met boat from yacht belongin' Danish chap name of Niels Grön. Purpose of meetin' still unknown, but we believe attempt to communicate with von Christmas. Anyway, Holmes got you signal Morse Code to Richardson in woods."

"Richardson!" exclaimed Joanna. "So it wasn't you, Richard."

"I told you it wasn't," Beefy protested, but Joanna hushed him and turned to Tubby again.

"Richardson," said Tubby, "by then workin' with Holmes in view of death Sir Geoffrey Carpentier. Sir Geoffrey had information regardin' proposed sale Danish islands to Britain. Holmes found document hidden on body and began negotiatin' with Richardson over way of smoothin' ruffled Yankee feathers if sale took place. Meanwhile, Esau, workin' for third party aforementioned, took matters into own hands and attacked Strand on beach. Not clear as to course events, but Strand's pockets picked clean before dumped on sands, probably from Esau's trap."

"Go back to the murder of Sir Geoffrey," I said. "Mycroft, did you deduce straight away who was the murderer?"

"Almost. I wondered how his body had been put where it was. The rising tide obliterated footprints or wheel marks, but I wondered why he had been left so close to Stanerigg House. I put two and two together very quickly after I learned from you and Joanna that Esau had repainted the trap. He probably feared it had been seen. He painted red over yellow."

"Of course!" I said. "That was why he made such a fuss when Marie and Elisabeth scraped off some of the paint by accident."

"Quite so. Esau should have chosen a lighter colour, though. Green, perhaps. I realised that if Esau was the murderer, or at least involved in the murder of Sir Geoffrey, then I was already dealing with a criminal mind of a high calibre. So I investigated Esau."

"Criminals of high calibre?" I interrupted. "Esau and Ichabod? I certainly didn't get that impression of them."

"I didn't mean them," said Mycroft. "I meant their master. But to find him I investigated Esau. It took a few days. The best place to start in a village like this is with the local clergy, but of course they were all concerned with the Christmas festivities. I also had other people to watch. I suspected the involvement of von Christmas in the murder of Sir Geoffrey, but I was wrong, and realised as much when Richardson replied to your parasol signals. I hope it was possible to repair it, by the way."

"Yes," I replied, indicating it upon a chair. "Ironically, it was Esau who repaired it."

"All I discovered was that Herr Niels Grön is a Danish agent communicating with Captain von Christmas. I found out nothing about either Esau or Ichabod from the local clergy, which I thought strange."

Sebastian spoke up again.

"The thing was, Holmes, I myself found none among the clergy who knew where those two men worshipped, which is remarkable in a village where people tend to go regularly to Sunday worship."

"Quite," said Mycroft. "That was significant, together with their names, and so I began to think about false identities."

"And that brings me to another question, Mycroft," I said, my voice trembling as I recalled the frightful sight of the body in the mortuary. "Was it Mr Richardson who died? Or is he just pretending too?"

"No, he really is dead. It happened like this. He wanted to meet me in the summer house in the grounds of the hotel, where he, the Major, and I could meet unobserved. That was after your picnic, when I made the mistake of hiring Esau to take me home, and the Major made the mistake of sending for Ichabod."

"Why was it a mistake?"

"I knew him to be a subordinate to a very clever master criminal, but I under-estimated my enemy. I thought he would not suspect that I had him under my eye if I treated him as though I had no suspicions. That was the mistake. At the time I knew nothing of the connection between Esau and Ichabod. Richardson, the Major and I met in the summer house."

"But why did he kill Richardson?"

"On Christmas Eve in the grounds of the hotel he apparently mistook Richardson for me. The doctor put the time of death as approximately four, dark enough for mistakes to be made. Now, when Esau murdered Richardson, he used a poacher's pneumatic gun at very close range."

"A what?" asked Joanna.

"Imagine something like a stirrup pump in appearance, with a rigid nozzle. That is the barrel, the pump is the air reservoir. Pumped up with air, it can fire one large pellet. Silent for use at night, it is capable of killing a man if held close enough. Esau approached Richardson from behind and held the barrel against the back of his head as he pressed the trigger. Richardson was wearing his ulster when he was killed. Now, you may have noticed that I possess a cape of similar appearance."

"Yes," I said. "I almost mistook Richardson for you on at least two occasions in daylight, so I suppose Esau could have made the mistake in the dark quite easily."

"Quite so. We had another appointment, this time without the Major, in the privacy of my room. By the merest chance I was late returning, and heard the sound of the gun - like a quiet cough but unmistakeable - as I was walking up the hotel drive. I stopped, thinking it to be poachers, and then heard the noise of a heavy body being dragged off the drive and into the woods. I then heard the distinctive sound of someone's head being badly beaten with a heavy weapon. The crunching - "

"Don't!" shuddered Stella.

"I crept into the woods myself and stayed silent until I heard the two assailants depart down the drive. Then I went and found what I feared, the body of Richardson. I waited till I knew the tide to be far enough out to enable me to approach the causeway from the beach, without having to pass Esau's cottage, and called on the Major. Together we performed the distasteful task of fitting Richardson out in a suit of mine."

"Why?" asked Joanna.

"When Esau and, presumably, Ichabod, went down the drive, they said something about 'getting Richardson next chance they got'. As they had already 'got' Richardson, I surmised that they thought they had 'got' me. I allowed them to go on thinking that, and moved to a cottage along the road, leaving word at the hotel reception to pass on messages left for me."

"And so," said Lucy, "you let us all think that you were dead?"

"You certainly did that," said Beefy. "There were so many bandages on Richardson's head that we were all taken in."

"But the birth mark," I said. "Don't tell me Mr Richardson had the same mark."

"Of course not. I did the necessary work myself with an indelible pencil."

"So only Tubby knew?"

"Right again. I then made sure that I was seen in Richardson's clothes, and continued to keep an eye on Esau. He had already murdered Strand for the information he got from Grön's yacht. But the most valuable information was that held by Sir Geoffrey. That was what Esau's master wanted, so as to cut out von Christmas and act as broker himself in any negotiation over the islands. Yes, half a million dollars would have come in very useful to Colonel Sebastian Moran."

"Moran?" I said. "But he's in Broadmoor, isn't he? They couldn't hang him for that Adair murder last year because he pleaded insanity and got away with it."

Mycroft shook his head and smiled grimly.

"He was in Broadmoor until recently, but he escaped. The authorities hushed it up because apparently there was bribery. He is now believed to be in Switzerland, where he banked a little nest egg from the six thousand a year that Professor Moriarty paid him. Fortunately, we need not expect him to reappear in this country, but his tentacles have a long reach. It was Moran who was behind the business at Gowanburn Grange. Sir Geoffrey left the house suddenly because he feared Moran."

"Moran got Esau to kill Sir Geoffrey?" I asked.

"Oh yes. They tracked him down."

"And then Moran wanted Esau to kill you?"

"I think so. It would have been a bonus for him - Moran, that is. I discovered through the local post office that Esau sent regular telegrams to Lancaster, where the police have arrested an undoubted agent of Moran's. Esau himself has a dubious history. He and the so-called Ichabod were involved in robbery and murder in cities like Liverpool and Manchester for some years. They are originally from Ireland and used a number of names."

"It was clever of Martin to know that nobody was likely to be called Ichabod, wasn't it?" I said. "You would expect the Reverend Mr Winstanley to know things like that, but perhaps not Martin. By the way, Joanna, I meant to ask you about Martin."

Joanna flared her nostrils for a moment, Beefy turned purple, Lucy, Stella and Sebastian looked horrified, and I realised that I had put a foot wrong somewhere. I gabbled on.

"Anyway, you would expect a clergyman to know about names like Ichabod."

"Yes," said Mycroft, "but I also pointed it out to Emmeline."

"Emmeline? Did she know you were alive?"

"Of course. I needed at least one person to act for me."

I felt suddenly cold and numb.

"When she came to the surgery, when Richardson was in the mortuary, did she know then?"

"She knew all about it. I sent her there to add a touch of verisimilitude, as Gilbert puts it in The Mikado. I gather she carried it off well, handkerchief to the eyes and so forth. Even you must applaud her acting, Anna."

He got no further. For the second time in that dreadful holiday I saw red. I rose from the chaise longue.

"You sent that trollop to pretend that you were dead?" I ignored the shocked exclamations from Sebastian and Stella. "Joanna and I were ill with the shock. I spent three days in bed. Marie sat up at nights with me. And all the time you were laughing over it with Emmeline? Get out, Mycroft! Get out! Get out! I never want to see you again!"

Snatching up my parasol, I hit him several times with it until the handle broke. Everyone seemed frozen except Mycroft. Startled as I had never seen him before, he retreated before my blows. I pursued him into the hall, still lashing out, dented his hat, and slammed the front door after him.

"Good Gad," said Tubby as I returned, while Beefy sat pop-eyed. Sebastian and Stella rose uncertainly, but said nothing, though Sebastian's lips seemed to be moving in prayer. Joanna and Lucy broke out into laughter.

"Well done, Anna! He's had it coming for years," said Joanna. "I think we all deserve a good night's sleep and a lie-in tomorrow."

"Not yet," I answered. "The one thing I haven't found out is why Esau and Ichabod held me captive. They could have left me alone, after all."

"As said before," said Tubby, "none too competent. Probably thought yer'd had some communication with Richardson. Followed yer on bikes from shed. Both knew we had three murders to investigate. Luck runnin' out for them." He laughed. "As it has for Holmes, what? By Gad, Anna, finest thing seen for years."

"Another thing," said Beefy. "What document did Holmes find on Sir Geoffrey's body? I thought you'd searched him thoroughly."

"Ah!" Tubby's eyes lit up. "Yes. Ingenious thing, what? Document photographed and reduced in size, celluloid negative cut to shape and stored inside back of that ten-and-sixpenny Ingersoll watch. Never thought to look inside. Holmes spotted it, removed negative when took watch away. Hazelwood Hotel has photographic darkroom for use by amateurs. Holmes enlarged and developed. Crucial document, means we don't have to worry re purchase islands. Impossible any country purchase islands piecemeal as suggested von Christmas. Explain in full tomorrow."

He puffed out a huge cloud of smoke that drove me off to bed. Joanna accompanied me upstairs.

"You know, Anna," she said in a low voice on the landing, "when you went in to see what we thought was Mycroft's body? You remember I couldn't go in? Anna, it was because it suddenly came to me that I might somehow reveal to Richard that Mycroft and I had once been lovers. You see, he doesn't know. I'm sorry I left you to go in alone, but I didn't dare. Goodnight, my dear."

Marie had been sitting up for me and helped me to undress. She seemed somewhat upset and I asked her if anything was wrong.

"Mam'selle, it is nothing I can trouble you with."

"Oh, come along, Marie. There's something on your mind."

"It is my friend Elisabeth, mam'selle. Mrs Winstanley she is going to give her the sack."

"Whatever for? She said something about a dreadful scandal."

The tale came hesitantly, with some embarrassment on Marie's part, and a few tears. She revealed a completely new aspect of Elisabeth. On the night that Captain von Christmas invited us - excepting Martin - to dinner, what was Elisabeth doing but seducing Martin in her room? He had crept back along the corridor late that night, his boots in his hand.

Having lost his virginity to his aunt's maid, Martin had entered con gusto into a full-blown affaire d'amour with her. All that Christmas, while everyone thought he was studying, he was enjoying Elisabeth's favours in her room, or sometimes in his. At last I understood the significance of Elisabeth's caperings with the telescope case at our beach picnic, and Marie's shocked enjoyment.

"Mam'selle," Marie said very humbly as she concluded, "I would be ever so grateful if you could have a word with Mrs Winstanley. Elisabeth she is my greatest friend, and she helped me to gain my post with you. After all, mam'selle, if I am good enough for John - Dr Watson, I mean - surely Elisabeth cannot be all bad for Mr Martin?"

"I shall see what I can do, Marie," I told her, "but I have no business interfering in Mrs Winstanley's domestic matters. Elisabeth should never have led the young man on, and if she means to entrap him into an unsuitable marriage, then she must learn otherwise."

"She does not wish to marry him, mam'selle. She merely wanted to make a man of the wee laddie, as she put it. But now she will be dismissed without a character and will find it hard to get another post."

"And where is Mr Martin?"

"Mrs Winstanley she has sent him home on the mail train, mam'selle. She found out all about this just after you went out tonight. I understand that she went in search of Elisabeth when she did not answer the bell, and found them in bed together. By the way, mam'selle, Elisabeth she has confessed that the night you heard sounds in the shrubbery, it was she and Mr Martin. And it was she who trampled out the footmarks."

Suppressing a smile at the thought of poor Martin going home on the mail train, I promised Marie to do what I could, and went to bed. As I fell asleep I hoped I could persuade Joanna to relent for, after all, Elisabeth had done no worse than I had, together with Lucy, Marie and Joanna herself.

I was awakened by the faint click of the door handle. Someone carefully entered the room. Hastily I snatched for the revolver under my pillow.

"Anna?"

The voice was a bare whisper, but I recognised Stephen. I drew back the coverlet for him, but he found my hand and drew me out of the bed.

"Come with me."

Slipping on my dressing gown, I followed him down the corridor where he unlocked a door. He led me gently into a room, where I felt the soft pile of a luxurious carpet under my bare feet. There was the rattle of a matchbox, and suddenly a candle flared into light.

Stephen was smiling at me, dressed as I was, in a dressing gown. Behind him the candle disclosed a sumptuous four-poster bed. He locked the door.

"We have everything we need here, my darling. A comfortable room, a bathroom adjoining, and that wonderfully-appointed bed."

Setting down the candle, he swept me off the floor and carried me to the bed, where he gently laid me down. I pulled him to me and for many minutes we kissed, our tongues exploring each other's mouth. At length he blew out the candle, rather to my disappointment, and I heard him undress. I did the same, and slipped into the comfortable bed, but, oh! How cold!

"Great Scott! It's like a cold bath," said Stephen. "Never mind. We'll soon warm it up, what?"

I flung my arms about him. How can I describe the sensation of that athlete's body against mine? I pulled him onto me and revelled in my exploration of his firm muscles, his clean limbs, the taste of his mouth on mine. My legs wrapped themselves around him and together we rode our way into bliss.

Our pleasure was unbelievable, and all too soon he collapsed onto me. I expected him to lose consciousness at once, as Mycroft usually did, but he raised himself on his elbows so that I could see the faint gleam of his eyes.

"Anna, you will be my wife?"

"Of course I will, my dearest, as I've already told you, but how?"

He rolled off me and lay contentedly on his back, one arm cradling me.

"As long as I know you will, we shall worry about the fine details later."

I rolled over and kissed him, but he was already asleep. Before I fell asleep I began to giggle, for a memory had come to the surface of my mind. It was of Mycroft and myself, lying exhausted on the hearthrug of our rooms in the Diogenes many years before, after we had made love in about four places and as many positions, finishing with me upside down in imitation of a piece of Indian statuary in the china cabinet. I could not help thinking how much I preferred this gentle, comfortable love-making to what Mycroft often demanded of me.

Before daybreak I was back in my own room. As I slipped back into sleep I savoured the memory of our night together, his firmly-muscled body, the pressure still on my thighs where I had wrapped them about him as if to crush him, the taste of his tongue in my mouth.

I remembered his last words before we left our bed: "We are destined for each other, Anna. Nothing can stop it."

There is little more to tell about my experiences in Lancashire. I went home a few days later without seeing Mycroft again. Joanna's efforts to bring Tubby and Lucy together were constantly hindered by Athelney Jones's enquiries and Captain Christmas's subsequent visits. The poor man felt responsible for everything that had happened and we had to invite him twice to dinner to put his mind at rest.

I managed to persuade Joanna to keep Elisabeth. As Shakespeare puts it, young men will do't when they come to't, and I think Joanna recognised that fact. But what really annoyed her was that her maid had set her cap at her nephew, which wasn't really the done thing. The last thing she said about it was: "Anna, I hope the morals a hundred years from now will be better than ours."

I can only agree.

Anna, Mycroft and company will return in the sixth volume of Miss Weybridge's memoirs, Mycroft At Hand.