'My men will take that over now, sir.'

'So I supposed. The rest of the cast are in the theatre. Sir Charles Cottringham would be glad of a word with you.' 'Did he say what about?'

'No. Merely a matter, I imagine, of letting you know that he's here.'

'I know that already. I'll see the body now and then I'd be grateful for the use of a small and quiet room for the rest of the day and, possibly, until Monday.'

'I thought that my business room would be the most suitable. If you will ring from Miss Lisle's room when you're ready, I'll show you where it is. And Munter will get you anything you need. My guests and I will be in the library when you want us.'

They moved through a large hall and up the staircase. Buckley noticed nothing of his surroundings. He walked with Sir George immediately behind Grogan and Ambrose Gorringe and listened while Gorringe gave his chief a succinct but remarkably comprehensive account of the events leading up to Miss Lisle's death: how she came to be on the island; brief particulars of the rest of the house party; the threatening letters; the fact that she had thought it necessary to bring her own private detective with her, Miss Cordelia Gray; the loss of the marble limb; the discovery of the body. It was an impressive performance, as carefully impersonal and factual as if it had been rehearsed. But then, thought Buckley, it probably had.

Outside the door, the party paused. Gorringe handed over three keys. He said:

'I locked all three doors after the discovery of the body. These are the only keys. I take it you don't want us to come in?'

Sir George spoke for the first time:

'When you need me, Chief Inspector, I'll be with my wife's stepson in his room. Boy's upset. Natural in the circumstances. Munter knows where to find me.' He turned abruptly and left them.

Grogan answered Gorringe's question.

'You've been very helpful, sir. But I think we can manage here on our own.'

She was an actress even in death. The scene in the bedroom was extraordinarily dramatic. Even the set had been cleverly designed for melodrama in the grand manner, the props glittering and ostentatious, the dominant colour red. And there she lay sprawled under the crimson canopy, one white leg carefully raised to show an expanse of thigh, her face plastered with artificial blood, while director and cameraman stepped round her, contemplating the best angles, careful not to touch or disturb that artfully provocative pose. Grogan stood at the right of the bed and looked down at her frowning, as if wondering whether the casting director had been right in choosing her for the role. Then he leaned down and sniffed at the skin of her arm. The moment was bizarre. Buckley thought: 'Is thy servant a dog that he should do this thing?' Almost he expected her to shudder with outrage, sit up and stretch out groping hands, demand a towel to wipe the mess from her face.

The room was overcrowded but the experts in death, investigating officers, fingerprint officers, photographer and scene-of-crime searchers, were adept at keeping out of each other's way. Grogan, as Buckley knew, had never reconciled himself to the use of civilian scene-of-crime officers, which was odd when you considered that he had come from the Met where the employment and training of civilians had gone about as far as it could go. But these two knew what they were about. They moved as delicately and confidendly as a couple of cats prowling their familiar habitat. He had worked with both of them before but he doubted whether he would recognize them in the street or the pub. He stood back out of the way and watched the senior of them. It was always their hands that he watched, hands sheathed in gloves so fine that they looked like a second glistening skin. Now those hands poured the remnants of the tea into a collecting flask, stoppered, sealed and labelled it; gently eased the cup and saucer into a plastic bag; scraped a sample of blood from the marble limb and placed it in the specially prepared tube; took up the limb itself, touching it only with the tips of the fingers and lowered it into a sterile box; delicately picked up the note with tweezers and insinuated that gently into its envelope. At the bed his colleague was busy with magnifying glass and tweezers, collecting hairs from the pillow, seemingly oblivious of that shattered face. When the Home Office pathologist had completed his examination, the bedclothes would be bundled into a plastic bag, sealed and added to the other exhibits. Grogan said:

'Doc Ellis-Jones is visiting his mother-in-law at Wareham, conveniently for us. They've sent an escort. He should be here within the next half-hour. Not that there's much he can tell us that we can't see for ourselves. And the time of death is fixed within pretty tight limits anyway. If you reckon the loss of body heat on this kind of day at about one and a half degrees an hour for the first six hours, he's unlikely to be able to put it any closer than we already know, some time between twenty past one when the girl left her alive, so Ambrose Gorringe tells us, and two forty-three when the same girl found her dead. To be the last one to see the victim and the one to find the body suggests that Miss Cordelia Gray is either careless or unfortunate. We may be able to judge which when we see her.'

Buckley said:

'From the appearance of the blood, sir, I'd say that she died sooner rather than later.'

'Yes. My guess would be within about thirty minutes of being left. That quotation under the marble limb. You recognized it, Sergeant?'

'No, sir.'

'I'm relieved to hear it, From The Duchess of Malfi, so Ambrose Gorringe informs us, the play in which Miss Lisle was cast in the title role. "Blood flies upwards and bedews the heavens." I applaud the sentiment even if I couldn't identify the source. But it isn't particularly apposite. The blood didn't fly upwards, or not to any great extent. This systematic destruction of the face was done after death. And we know the possible reasons for that.'

It was rather like a viva-voce examination, thought Buckley. But this question was an easy one.

'To conceal identity. To obscure the real cause of death. To make absolutely sure. An explosion of anger, hatred or fear.'

'And then, after that brainstorm of violence, our literary-minded murderer calmly replaces the eye pads. He has a sense of humour, Sergeant.'

They moved together into the bathroom. Here was a compromise between period opulence and modern functionalism. The great bath was marble and encased in a mahogany surround. The seat of the lavatory was mahogany, too, with a high flush. The walls were tiled, each tile painted in blue with a different posy of wild flowers, and there was a cheval-glass, its frame decorated with cherubs. But the towel-rail was heated, there was a bidet, a shower had been installed above the bath and a shelf over the hand-basin held a formidable assortment of bath essences, powder and expensive wrapped soaps.

Four white towels were untidily hung over the rail. Grogan sniffed each of them and rumpled them in his huge hands. He said:

'It's a pity about that heated rail. They're completely dry. And so are the bath and hand-basin. There's no way of telling whether she had time to bath before she was killed, not unless Doc Ellis-Jones can isolate traces of powder or bath essence from her skin, and even that wouldn't be conclusive. But the towels look as if they've been recently used and they're slightly scented. So is the body and it's the same smell. My guess is that she did have time. She drank her tea, took off her make-up and bathed. If Miss Gray left her at twenty past one, that would bring us to about twenty minutes to two.'

The senior scene-of-crime officer was waiting at the door. Grogan stood aside for him then went back into the bedroom and stood at the window looking out to where a hairline of purple separated the darkening sea from the sky. He said: