'Not even, my dear Ivo, as a memorial to her.'

They then seemed to realize that the exchange, even though Sir George was seated too far away to overhear, was in poor taste. Both of them glanced at Cordelia. She felt a little angry with Ambrose. Helping herself to mange-tout peas she said on impulse:

'I was wondering whether he might have found a way to augment his wages, perhaps a little smuggling on the side. The Devil's Kettle would be a useful unloading point. I noticed that he keeps the trapdoor bolt well oiled and he'd hardly need to do that if you don't show the place to summer visitors. And on Friday night I saw a light flashing at sea. I thought that it might be acknowledging a signal.'

Ambrose laughed as he carried back his plate, but when he spoke the thin note of spite was unmistakable. 'Clever Cordelia! You're wasted as an amateur. Grogan would be glad to enrol you in the ranks of official snoopers. Munter may have his private arrangements but he doesn't confide in me and I certainly have no intention of inquiring. Courcy is traditionally a smuggler's haven and most sailors in these parts do a little amateur smuggling. It wouldn't amount to much, a few casks of brandy, an occasional bottle of scent. Nothing as spectacularly naughty as drugs if that's what you have in mind. Most people like a little tax-free income and a touch of risk adds to the fun. But I don't advise you to confide your suspicions to Grogan. Let him get on with the investigation he has in hand.'

Ivo said:

'What about the lights Cordelia saw?'

'Warning off his pals I expect. He'd hardly want the stuff landed with the island swarming with police.' Ivo said evenly:

'Except that Cordelia saw the signal on Friday. How could he know that the police would be here next day?' Ambrose shrugged, unworried.

'Then it couldn't have been the police he feared. Perhaps he knew or guessed that we were being favoured with the company of a private eye. Don't ask me how he knew. Clarissa didn't confide in me and I shouldn't have told Munter even if she had. But it's my experience that little goes on under any roof that a good servant doesn't learn first.'

They rejoined Sir George. He had already helped himself to sole and was eating with a stolid determination but with no evident enjoyment. Cordelia pondered on Munter. She thought it unlikely that he had guessed her secret or that he would have altered his plans if he had. It was more possible that with the castle full of guests he had felt the time unpropitious for the reception of his loot; too many people about, too much extra work, the possibility that he would find it difficult to slip away unnoticed. Perhaps he hadn't been able to get a message to his confederates or the message had gone astray. Or had there been an unexpected arrival on the island, someone he feared particularly, or someone who might have known of the Devil's Kettle, might even have visited it? There was only one person who fitted that bill: Sir George.

The meal seemed endless. Cordelia sensed that they all wished it over but that no one wanted to appear to hurry or to be the first to leave. Perhaps that was why they appeared to be eating with deliberate slowness. She wondered whether it was the absence of staff that made the occasion so portentous; they might be the remnants of some deserted and soon to be beleaguered garrison stoically eating their last meal with traditional ceremony, ears tuned for the first distant shouts of the barbarians. They ate and drank but were silent. The six candles in their branched entwined stems seemed to burn less brightly than on their first evening so that their features, half shadowed, were sharpened into caricatures of their daytime selves. Pale, etiolated hands reached out to the fruit bowl, to furred and flushed peaches, the curved shininess of bananas, apples burnished so that they looked as artificial as Ambrose's candle-lit skin.

The french windows had been shut against the chill of the autumn night and a thin wood fire crackled in the immense grate. But surely those fitfully leaping flames couldn't account for the oppressive heat of the room? It seemed to Cordelia that it was getting hotter by the minute, that the heat of the day had been trapped and thickened, making it difficult to breathe, intensifying the smell of the food so that she felt faintly nauseous. And in her imagination the room itself changed; the Orpens splurged and spread into amorphous colours so that the walls appeared to be hung with crude tapestries and the elegantly stuccoed roof raised smoked hammer beams to a black infinity, open to an everlastingly starless sky. She shivered despite the heat and reached for her wine glass as if the physical feel of cool glass could strengthen her hold on reality. Perhaps only now were the full horror of Clarissa's death, the strain of the police interrogation taking their physical toll.

One candle wavered as if blown by an invisible breath, flickered, and went out. Simon gave a gasp, then a long terrified moan. Hands, half-lifted to mouths, became motionless. They turned in a single movement and stared at the window. Silhouetted against the moonlight reared an immense form, its black arms flailing, hurling itself against the window. Its anger came to them faintly, something between a wail and a bellow. As they gazed in fascinated horror it suddenly ceased its frantic beating and was for a moment still, quietly looking in at their faces. The gaping mouth, raw as a wound, seemed to suck at the window. Two gigantic palms, fingers splayed, imprinted themselves on the glass. The pressed, distorted features dissolved against the window into a mess of slowly draining flesh. Then the creature gathered its strength and heaved. The doors gave, and Munter, wild-eyed, almost fell into the room. The night air rushed cool and sweet over their faces and the distant sighing of the waves became a surging tide of sound as if the swaying figure had been borne in on them by the force of a violent storm, bringing the sea with him.

No one spoke. Ambrose got to his feet and moved forward. Munter brushed him aside and shambled up to Sir George until their faces almost touched. Sir George stayed in his seat. Not a muscle moved. Then Munter spoke, throwing back his head and almost howling the words:

'Murderer! Murderer! Murderer!'

Cordelia wondered when Sir George would move, whether he would wait until Munter's fingers were actually at his throat. But Ambrose had moved behind and had seized the shuddering arms. At first the contact seemed to calm Munter. Then he gave a violent wrench. Ambrose said breathlessly:

'Could one of you help?'

Ivo had begun peeling a peach. He seemed totally unconcerned. He said:

'I'd be no use in this particular emergency, I'm afraid.'

Simon got up and grasped the man's other arm. At his touch Munter's belligerency left him. His knees buckled and Ambrose and Simon moved closer, supporting his sagging weight between them. He tried to focus his eyes on the boy, then slurred out a few words, guttural, unintelligible, sounding hardly English. But his final words were clear enough.

'Poor sod. God, but she was a bitch that one.'

No one else spoke. Together Ambrose and Simon urged him to the door. He gave no further trouble but went as obediently as a disciplined child.

After they had left, the two men and Cordelia sat in silence for a minute. Then Sir George got up and closed the french windows. The noise of the sea became muted and the wildly flickering candles steadied and burned with a clear flame. Returning to the table he selected an apple and said:

'Extraordinary fellow! I was at Sandhurst with a chap who drank like that. Sober for months at a time, then paralytic for a week. Torpedoed in the Med in the winter of '42. Foul weather. Picked up from a raft three days later. Only one of the party to survive. He said that it was because he was pickled in whisky. D'you suppose Gorringe lets Munter have the key to his cellar?'