‘It’s just along here.’

They went back down the corridor. Pünd continued through the archway and glanced briefly at the corridor with four photographs on the wall and a window at the end. Then he returned to the door that Eric had indicated. It opened into a large, bright room at the front of the house with three windows looking out over the lawn and the sea just beyond. A second door opened onto the balcony that he had seen when he arrived and Pünd could imagine the view in the summer months with the sun shining and the water sparkling. It would be a lovely place to wake up.

The room itself was decorated with silk wallpaper that was Chinese in style, incorporating birds and lotus leaves. It immediately reminded Pünd of somewhere he had been recently, but it took him a few moments to connect it with the room in Knightsbridge where the Pargeters had slept. He wondered why it should have entered his mind. Melissa’s taste was more feminine. She had added muslin curtains, dried flowers, a silk canopy hanging over an antique four-poster bed. The carpet was ivory-coloured and the furniture looked French, hand-painted: a Breton bonnetière, a chest of drawers and a writing bureau with two neat piles of letters. A pair of ormolu tables and two lamps stood on either side of the bed. One of the lamps had a crack clearly visible in its glass shade. Pünd noticed a telephone socket in the wall and guessed that the telephone itself must have stood on the table furthest away from the door. The police would have removed it because it was, after all, a murder weapon. An open door led into a large bathroom with a shower, a bath, a toilet and – unusually – a bidet.

‘I’m afraid the room’s been cleaned and tidied up,’ Hare explained. ‘We left it how it was for four or five days and we’ve got plenty of photographs which I can show you. But Mr Pendleton was very unhappy, leaving it like that. It was a constant reminder of what had happened and in the end, given his mental condition, I gave way and let them rearrange it. Of course, I didn’t know you would be coming down. I’m sorry.’

‘Not at all, Detective Chief Inspector. You did exactly the right thing. But it would be helpful to me if you could describe the room as it was when you found it.’

‘Certainly.’ Hare looked around him, taking his time before he began. ‘Melissa James was on the bed. It was a horrible sight. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a strangulation victim, but it’s a dreadful way to die. She was lying with her head bent and one arm twisted behind her neck. Her eyes were staring and bloodshot. She had swollen lips. Are you all right with this, Miss Cain?’

Madeline Cain had been standing beside the writing bureau, but on hearing the lurid details she had become faint. She reached behind her as if to steady herself, then staggered and almost fell, sending one pile of letters tumbling to the floor. For a moment, she looked as if she was about to follow them.

Pünd hurried over to her. ‘Miss Cain?’

‘Forgive me, Mr Pünd.’ Her eyes were staring out from behind her horn-rimmed spectacles. With difficulty, she knelt down and collected the letters. ‘So clumsy of me … I’m sorry.’

‘There is absolutely no need to apologise,’ he said. ‘I am a fool to have been so inconsiderate. You must go downstairs.’

‘Thank you, Mr Pünd.’ He helped her to her feet and she handed the letters over to him. ‘I’m afraid this has really been too much for me.’

‘Would you like me to accompany you?’

‘No. I’ll be absolutely fine. I’m sorry.’ She tried to force a smile. ‘I never had any of this sort of thing at United Biscuits.’

She hurried out of the room.

‘Do you want me to take notes for you?’ Hare asked. He was clearly concerned by what he had just witnessed.

‘I am sure I will be able to remember all the details.’ Pünd closed the door again. ‘It was wrong of me to bring Miss Cain to the scene of the crime,’ he added. He returned the letters to the bureau. ‘But I have not had a secretary before and I have not yet established the correct procedure.’

‘Shall I go on?’

‘Indeed so, Detective Chief Inspector.’

‘Well, there were two sets of abrasions around the neck and traces of blood coming from the ear canals. I’m afraid she hadn’t put up much of a fight. The bedclothes were crumpled and she had lost one of her shoes, but there was nothing under her nails. I think she must have been attacked from behind. That would explain why she was unable to reach the man who was killing her.’

‘You are certain it was a man?’

‘You can correct me, Mr Pünd, but somehow I find it difficult to think of a woman strangling another woman.’

‘It would be unusual, certainly.’

‘It was, of course, Dr Collins who discovered the body. He is a sensible chap and although he tried to revive Miss James, he didn’t touch anything else.’

‘What of the murder weapon?’

‘She was strangled with the cord from the phone, which was next to the bed. That suggests to me that the murder hadn’t been planned. If someone had come here with the intention of killing her, you’d think they’d have brought their own murder weapon. There were no fingerprints on the phone, by the way. We checked it and there was nothing. Either the killer wiped it clean or he was wearing gloves.’

Pünd absorbed this without making any further comment. ‘You mentioned to me that there were two tissues that had been discarded.’

‘Actually, there were three. One of them was downstairs.’ Hare walked over to the make-up table. ‘There was a box of tissues here,’ he said. ‘Right now it’s in Exeter, along with the other evidence.’ He paused. ‘Before she was attacked, Melissa James was obviously distraught. We found both of the tissues here, one in the waste-paper basket, one on the floor. We have those too. She had cried a lot, Mr Pünd.’

‘Do you have any idea what had upset her?’

‘Well, you heard what Pendleton said. It might have been the meetings she had in the hotel – first with the Gardners and then with Simon Cox. On the other hand, they all agree that she was absolutely fine when she left.’

‘They may not be reliable witnesses.’

‘That’s true. But she also chatted to Nancy Mitchell, the girl behind the reception desk, and she agreed – there didn’t seem to be anything wrong.’

‘So it is clear that something must have greatly upset her after she left the Moonflower.’

‘Exactly. It could, of course, have happened in the missing twenty minutes, when Melissa managed to disappear. But my guess is that it’s more likely to have been the meeting she had with her husband. Let’s not forget, he was the last person who saw her alive. They talked for about ten minutes before he left for the opera … which he says was about 6.15 p.m. She was certainly crying when she called Dr Collins twelve or thirteen minutes later.’

‘You have not told me what she said to him.’

‘It might be better if you heard it from the doctor.’ Hare shook his head and sighed. ‘It doesn’t make a lot of sense.’

‘Very well. And now I would like to see the room where the third tissue was found.’

They left the bedroom and went downstairs into the living room, which occupied the front corner of the house with two windows facing the sea and two more at the side. A pair of glass doors opened onto the bay where Francis Pendleton’s Austin had been parked. Pünd noted the many other references to Melissa James’s life as a film star: the framed photographs, the silver cigarette box from MGM, more posters, a clapperboard from one of her films.

‘We found the other ball of tissue over there … ’ Hare pointed in the direction of a pedestal desk made of aluminium that stood against the far door. It seemed to be there for decorative purposes. There was a large vase of dried flowers in the centre and, next to it, a heavy-looking Bakelite telephone. ‘It was on the floor, under the desk.’

‘Are there other telephones in the house?’ Pünd asked.

Hare thought for a moment. ‘I think there’s one in the kitchen. But that’s about it.’

‘It is interesting … ’ Pünd was speaking almost to himself. ‘You are correct in your observation that Miss James shed many tears. She wept in her bedroom, and it would seem from the evidence that she also wept in here. But this is the question for you, Detective Chief Inspector. What was it that upset her and why did it propel her to two quite separate parts of the house?’

‘I’m not sure I can answer that,’ Hare replied.

‘Forgive me, my friend, but I think that you must. We know that she was killed in the bedroom. And yet it is equally possible that she made the telephone call to Dr Collins downstairs, in this very room. How could that have happened?’