Their professional murmurs were interrupted by an uncontrolled shriek.

‘Get on with it, man!’ screamed Silmont. ‘Fools! Numb-skulls!’ he raved. ‘While you’re all on your knees in the mouse-droppings, playing with your fingerprint dust, the man behind this goes about his business laughing at you! Can’t you see beyond the dots and the brushstrokes? Get the whole picture in focus? This trollop spent some hours here, befouling the last resting place of my ancestor—but in whose bed did she spend her last night alive?’

He stood, shaking with rage, his charge of electric energy directed at Jacquemin.

To Joe’s surprise, Jacquemin did not draw his gun or click his fingers for the handcuffs but returned a soft answer. ‘Sir, you are unwell. Is there someone you would like me to summon?’

Silmont uttered a shout of mocking laughter. ‘Yes. There is someone you could well bestir yourself to get hold of. If it’s not too much trouble. My steward. Guy de Pacy.’

When the lord and Jacquemin had left, Joe took the other end of the woodwork and asked conversationally: ‘Tell me, Martineau … when I came in, you mentioned that you had three victims but I think you also referred to two—was it two?—suspects?’

Martineau laughed. ‘Oh, that was just a joke, sir, between me and the Commissaire. Didn’t realize he has no sense of humour. Though I should have known from the stories the other lads put about! Did you know, sir—no, why would you—that the Commissaire is said to have a scale model of a guillotine on his desk in his Paris office? A working model! He uses it to chop the ends off his cigars. Dramatically—in front of men he’s grilling for a capital offence.”

‘Good Lord!’ said Joe faintly. He ought not to be listening to gossip of this nature but relished the thought of passing on this snippet to Superintendent Cottingham when he got back. Ralph was strongly against the death penalty and would be reduced to splutters of indignation at the idea.

‘But I meant what I said—about the suspects, sir,’ Martineau went on. ‘We have two suspects right here in the chapel.’ He enjoyed Joe’s puzzlement for a moment then explained: ‘Suspects for a crime six hundred years old. The murder of Sir Hugues’s first wife. Ah—you didn’t know he had one? No tomb to her memory. No expensive Italian effigy. Name unknown. And—jointly charged in my book: Sir Hugues and his not so angelic wife Aliénore! You haven’t heard the story?’ The Commander’s receptive features invited the young Frenchman to delve deeper into folklore. ‘Oh, it’s a corker! Let me tell you …’

The two men worked on together in complete harmony, their crime scene training meshing smoothly. At home, Joe would have insisted on an accompanying silence but here, in this sepulchral place, he found he was glad to hear Martineau’s tale enlivening the routine business.

His story was drawing to a close and Joe was wondering just how much of the detail had been expanded or added by this natural storyteller when the door was flung open and Guy de Pacy stormed in. He left the door to crash shut behind him and strode to the tomb oblivious of Joe and Martineau who were on their knees logging footprints by the pile of debris.

Joe looked up and, for the third time that morning, watched a man’s features working in acute distress at what he was seeing. But de Pacy did something in Estelle’s presence that the other two had not attempted. He reached out a hand to touch her cheek.

Joe called out a warning, uncertain that the man was aware of their presence and at pains to avert for him the embarrassment of having someone witness emotion better concealed. ‘Guy! We’re over here! I say—would you mind awfully stepping back?’

‘Rule one in the scene of crime handbook, sir,’ explained Martineau, showing himself. ‘Don’t allow contamination of the corpse.’

They both started at the thunder of his voice. ‘Contamination? Corpse?’ His words were infused with a deadly energy. ‘I’m not contaminating a corpse, you idiots! I’m saying farewell to a beautiful creature!’

They stood by helpless, unable to prevent him from bending over the body and brushing the cold forehead with his lips. He murmured a few indistinct words, made the sign of the cross over her twice and then looked up at the policemen, his face twisted with grief.

‘I want him, Sandilands. I want his head; I want his guts. I want to see the light die in his eyes; I want to hear his last gasp. Find him!’

He walked away.

Reaching the door, he turned and called back over his shoulder: ‘And you could start your search with my cousin. The Lord Bloody Silmont!’

Chapter Twenty

‘Did I say we had two suspects, sir?’ whispered Martineau. ‘Make that four, shall we? And two of ’em alive and kicking each other. Ouch! There goes another seriously disturbed gentleman. The steward, I think?’

‘Yes. Guy de Pacy. The lord’s cousin. You saw him in the kitchens attending to the child. Before he heard the news.’

‘Does bad temper run in the family? What an outburst!’

‘What was the phrase you served up to the lord earlier? The phrase he savoured? “An outpouring of pent-up hatred” or some such? That was an outpouring of emotion all right and it came from pretty deep but I wouldn’t say hatred had much to do with it, would you, Lieutenant?’

Martineau shook his head in bafflement. ‘No, sir. And I’ll tell you what—he didn’t care that we saw it. That was quite a performance!’

‘Tell me, Lieutenant, have you ever seen a man make the sign of the cross twice over a body?’

‘Can’t say I have, sir. Once is usually sufficient.’

The throb of a six-cylinder engine greeted them as they moved out into the courtyard an hour later. The Hispano-Suiza was on the move. The motor car was advancing on them, as white, as silent and as stately as a swan on a mere. Packed into the rear seat were the duenna and the ballerinas and, at the wheel, just recognizable in cap, sun goggles, driving gloves, duster coat and white scarf, was Petrovsky.

‘That man doesn’t leave!’ Joe snapped to Martineau and raced forward to stand, one hand raised, blocking his path to the drawbridge. The engine revved and the car gathered speed. Joe tried not to flinch as the car came inexorably on. As it surged towards him, his eyes were riveted by the aggressive emblem mounted on the bonnet. The Hispano’s silver stork was flying at him, long neck extended, ready to impale him on its lance-like beak. He was conscious of Martineau lining up by his side as the car screeched and juddered to a halt inches from their toecaps.

Petrovsky chose to react in French: ‘What the hell are you up to? Testing out my power-assisted brakes? As you see, they’re damned efficient! Idiot! I could have killed you! Like to play this little scene again? I may succeed next time!’ he snarled.

‘Mr Toad, I presume? Good morning!’ Joe said, oozing English affability. ‘Mesdames!’ He switched into French and doffed an imaginary hat. ‘I must ask you to abandon whatever plans you have for the day and return to the great hall.’

‘Are you barmy? We were leaving this morning anyway. Appointment in Avignon. And if you think we’re going to stay on in this madhouse a moment longer, you’re way off beam!’ Petrovsky pushed up his goggles, the better to glower his disdain as he announced: ‘Now hear me, Sandilands! We’ve all been made aware by that moustachioed French fop in there of this night’s disastrous events. Events which you have signally failed to avert. As the Law seems to offer no protection, we must shift for ourselves. I have a duty of care to these ladies. I am not a man to expose them to the attentions of a murdering maniac. Now get out of my way!’