His eyes had travelled round the room and he had noticed something out of place. The chest of drawers between the windows. The top drawer was slightly open. Why should that be? He had been back into the room when the police were there and afterwards, when it had been cleaned. He had looked in only that morning. The drawer had been closed. He was sure of it.

He forced himself to enter through the doorway, breaking the invisible barrier. He reached down and opened the drawer. This was where Melissa kept some of her most intimate things – her stockings, her underclothes. He looked at the different items, remembering the shape of them and the warmth when she had worn them. And then somehow, in the fog of medication, he saw that one of them had been taken. A white silk negligée decorated with flowers that he had bought her in Paris. It had come from an expensive boutique on the Champs-élysées. She had walked past and seen it in the window and said she liked it, so after they had returned to the hotel he had run all the way back to get it as a surprise. He reached down and fumbled through the other garments just in case he was wrong. But he knew that he wasn’t. He had seen it, neatly folded, after the room had been restored. It had been on the top of the pile. It had been there.

Who had taken it? Who had committed this act of desecration?

Francis listened to the music wafting in through the darkness. He thought of Eric Chandler and the way he had always looked at Melissa. The two of them had laughed about it, but he had often thought there was something wrong. He wanted to go into the living room now. He wanted to confront both of them, the mother and the son. But he wasn’t strong enough. He felt ill. It would have to wait until the morning.

Francis Pendleton groped his way out of the room and went back to bed.

VII

Atticus Pünd had returned to his room after an excellent dinner with Detective Chief Inspector Hare. There were various thoughts turning in his mind and he was not quite ready for bed so he lit a cigarette and stepped out onto the narrow balcony in front of his room. From here he had an uninterrupted view of the sea as it stretched all the way to the horizon, a single line, perfectly drawn by the moonlight. The moon itself was low in the sky and appeared almost as a single eye, watching him from the other side of the world. He listened to the rhythm of the waves and smoked his cigarette. The darkness was telling him something and he knew what it was.

He should not have taken the case.

Coming to Tawleigh-on-the-Water had been a mistake, and not just because he had been unable to meet the client who had sent him here. It would have been good to have come face to face with Mr Edgar Schultz and to have discovered his true motivation for hiring a private detective. ‘We want to know what happened. We feel we owe it to her.’ That was what he had said on the telephone, but he had said other things too and they had not been true. There was also something in the letter he had received; a small point, but nonetheless one that had concerned him.

Had he been too hasty? Although he had not personally seen Melissa James’s films, he knew she had given pleasure to many people in the world and for that she was to be admired. Perhaps that was why he had been so quick to volunteer his services. It was also true that, after a week, the police had made no arrest. Was that the job of the private detective, to bring justice where otherwise it might fail? He did not think so. He did not see himself as an avenger. He was more of an administrator. Here is the crime. Here is the solution. His job was to bring them together.

He had no solution yet. It occurred to him that most of the people he had so far met had a reasonable explanation for their whereabouts at the time of the crime. Francis Pendleton was on his way to the opera. Phyllis Chandler and her son had been with each other and it seemed unlikely (though not impossible) that one could have committed the murder without the knowledge of the other. Dr Collins had been in the surgery with his wife. The Gardners had been at the hotel. And so on.

Simon Cox? He had the opportunity but not, Pünd thought, the cold-bloodedness. Algernon Marsh? He claimed to have been asleep in his room after having had too much to drink. But his sister had said he’d arrived at the house forty-five minutes later than he claimed.

It was all wrong. Pünd had written about the shape of a crime, about how, in an investigation, events will arrange themselves until they become instantly identifiable. Such-and-such a person must have committed the murder because it is the only way that it makes sense of the overall design. The ten moments in time drawn up by Miss Cain should have illustrated exactly that. They should have presented themselves as the connecting points in one of those puzzles enjoyed by children: join the dots and a picture should appear. But it had not.

He exhaled smoke and watched it corkscrew in the air and then disappear into the darkness. At that moment he understood that there was an evil presence in Tawleigh-on-the-Water and that he had been aware of it since he had arrived. It was close to him. He could feel it now.

He went back into the room, closing the door behind him.

TWELVE

AN ARREST IS MADE

Mrs Chandler, I wonder if I might have a word … ’

Phyllis Chandler had just boiled the kettle when Francis Pendleton came into the kitchen. He was looking pale and very thin with hollows in his cheeks and dark shadows under his eyes, but there was a sense of determination about him that hadn’t been there before.

‘It’s very good to see you up, sir,’ she said. ‘I was just going to bring you some tea and maybe a little toast for breakfast.’

‘I don’t want any breakfast, thank you. Where is Eric?’

‘He’s gone into Tawleigh. I asked him to pick up some more eggs.’ She knew at once that trouble was coming. She could tell from his tone of voice and from the way he had enquired about Eric.

‘There’s something I have to ask you,’ Francis went on. ‘Have either of you been into my wife’s bedroom since … ’ He couldn’t find a way to finish the sentence. ‘Have either of you been in there?’

‘I certainly haven’t, sir … ’

‘Because someone has taken something. I’m not imagining it because they left the drawer open and I know it was there.’

‘What have they taken?’ All the colour drained from Phyllis’s face as she waited for the axe to fall.

‘It’s a very personal item. A silk negligée. I think you probably know the one I mean.’

‘The pretty white one, with flowers?’ She had ironed it often enough.

‘Yes. You don’t have it in the laundry room?’

‘No, sir.’ For half a second she had considered lying to him but what good would that do?

‘Do you have any idea who might have taken it?’

Phyllis pulled a chair from the table and sat down heavily. Tears were welling up in her eyes.

‘Mrs Chandler?’

‘It was Eric.’

‘I’m sorry?’ She had whispered so quietly that he hadn’t heard her.

‘Eric!’ She took out a handkerchief and wiped her eyes.

‘But why would Eric …?’

‘I can’t answer that, Mr Pendleton. I don’t know what to say to you. I’m so ashamed I could die.’ Now that she had started, the words poured out of her. ‘There’s something wrong with him. He adored the mistress, but he let it go to his head and he couldn’t stop himself. I’ve told him. I’ve already had words with him.’

‘You knew about this?’ Francis was shocked.

‘Not about the negligée, sir. But I knew … other things.’

‘He took other things?’

‘I don’t know, sir. Maybe. He’s not well—’

Francis held up a hand. This wasn’t what he had expected and he didn’t have the strength to deal with it. For a long moment neither of them spoke. Then he took a breath. ‘I will be selling Clarence Keep quite soon anyway,’ he said. ‘I had already decided that. I can’t live here any more, not on my own. But I think you and your son should leave at once, by the end of the day. My wife is dead and all he can do is—’ He broke off. ‘I should report him. Maybe I will report him.’

‘I tried to stop him, sir.’ Phyllis burst into tears.

‘I’m sorry, Mrs Chandler. I know you’re not to blame. But I want you both out of here. As for your son, when he gets back you can tell him that I don’t want to see him again. He makes me sick.’

Francis turned round and left the room.