‘Was any one of these ladies more likely than the rest to take it?’

‘Oh, I’ll say so! But you’re going to have some trouble interrogating her! Estelle Smeeth. The dear departed. She hated me.’

‘The reason for this hatred was …?’

‘She couldn’t take a bit of teasing, that’s why.’ Cecily’s features took on an unpleasant truculence. ‘She irritated me from the moment she arrived. I made a mess of her bed on her second night. Nothing much—just the usual dorm foolery. But Miss Smeeth didn’t seem to have the background to understand or appreciate that sort of thing and—my!—did she ever overreact!’

‘Are you saying she retaliated? She got her own back?’

‘With knobs on!’ Snorting with outrage, Cecily confided: ‘She put a snake in my bed!’

‘A moment … you’re quite certain it was Estelle who did this dirty deed?’

‘Well, who else? She’d never admit it. Tried to blame Jane Makepeace. But it was her bed I’d messed up. She was the one with a certain close association with the under-forester … that raffish, curly-haired one who delivers the rabbits. I noticed he always made an appearance whenever there was a sight of Estelle in the offing. And who else would be able to catch one and chop its head off? The snake, I mean. A completely overworked reaction, I think you’ll agree, Commander?’ she finished primly.

‘Head? Off?’ asked Joe faintly. He had a sudden sick feeling that the interview was spiralling out of his grasp.

Jacquemin shot a meaningful look at Martineau who was already scratching a note in his book.

‘The maids were not best pleased to be called up to deal with it,’ Cecily said frostily.

Having listened with a commendably inexpressive face to this embarrassing catalogue of English eccentricity, the Commissaire suddenly lost patience and leaned forward. ‘Miss Somerset,’ he purred in his heavily accented English, ‘a Frenchman always keeps his word to the fair sex. I told you I would find and return to you your lens cap. And here it is.’ He took it from his pocket and placed it in front of her.

Cecily picked it up and examined it. ‘Oh, I say! Thanks so much. Yes, that’s mine. Wherever did you find it?’

‘Clutched in the dead hand of your friend Estelle,’ he said in a doom-laden tone.

Cecily dropped it with a clink on to the floor and squealed.

‘Interview over.’ Jacquemin smiled. ‘For now. I must ask you to hold yourself available, Miss Somerset, for our further entertainment.’

‘I had thought better of the English, Sandilands! A nation that has given the world the Whitechapel Ripper, the Brides in the Bath Smith, the Royston Disemboweller, the Brighton Poisoner, should be ashamed to now offer us the hair-tugging and wrist-slapping exploits of a gaggle of overgrown schoolgirls!’

Joe looked at the cynical face and understood his opposite number. ‘You’re no more fooled by all this flummery than I am, Jacquemin. That was uncomfortable but it had to be gone through. And now, I think we could say we’re moving in for the kill ourselves. The Silmont Slayer is within our grasp,’ he added fancifully.

‘A clever business,’ commented Jacquemin. ‘A blend of careful forward planning and on-the-spot reaction to favourable circumstances.’

‘The qualities of the best generals,’ Joe said. ‘I’ve known a few such. Two of them were even French.’

‘I can see when, how and who,’ said Jacquemin. ‘And certainly that will be thought to be enough to make an arrest. But I cannot yet see why it was done. And that concerns me. Where is the profit in it? Where the satisfaction?’

‘I think I’ve got there,’ said Joe. ‘And I can tell you, the profit is great—and material: the satisfaction, twisted up as it is with thick strands of envy and vengeance, enormous. Bad blood, Jacquemin. It’s a case of bad blood.’

Chapter Thirty-Three

‘Not now, Orlando. Things to do. Can’t it wait?’

Orlando seized him by the arm as Joe, leaving the office, tried to push past him.

‘No, it damned well can’t! This is something you started and when you’ve heard me you’ll perhaps have the good grace to say thank you. You may even admit that what I have to say will make your life easier.’

‘Walk with me, then. I’m just going to the great hall to check that someone I’m interested in is still there in plain sight, obeying the rules. I shouldn’t have asked Dorcas to go ferreting about the castle by herself.’

He quickened his step.

‘No, you shouldn’t! And, yes, this is about Dorcas. I managed to exchange a few words with her before she beetled off running your errands. I tried to countermand your order and told her to stay in the hall but she went off anyway. I begin to think, Sandilands, that she’s too much under your thumb.’

‘Is that it? I don’t agree. That girl is under no one’s thumb—not even yours. But I understand, sympathize, concur … whatever you want me to say. You’re her father. Will you tell the child her position of Sorcerer’s Apprentice has been terminated or shall I?’

‘No, that’s not it! That was a by-the-way remark. What I want to say—after due consultation with my daughter—is that we both, she and I, want you to desist.’

‘Desist from what, precisely?’

‘You know damn well what. I’m telling you to stop looking for her mother, Laure. She’s lost and, after much thought, we’ve both decided that it would lead only to trouble and disturbance if you managed to find her. Go no further, Joe. Clear?’

‘Clear. Look, mate, I’m inviting you to waste a few further minutes of my time and step into this room with me so that I can give you a dressing down without disturbing the castle.’

Joe pushed him though the open door of a games room and closed the door after them. ‘You wouldn’t want anyone to overhear what we have to say to each other, I think. There are chairs over there by the snooker table. Let’s sit for a moment. And last time we sat knee to knee you looked me in the eye and told me less than the whole truth. You’ve been stringing me along … To say nothing of Dorcas. Leaving us both to stumble about in a darkness you could have illuminated. That stops here and now. Imagine yourself in the confessional. There’s nothing you can say to me that will shock or amaze me. Okay?’

‘Okay. It was your snotty remark about thirty-eight weeks that got me thinking. The duration of a pregnancy. I was surprised to hear a bachelor knew that,’ Orlando said resentfully.

‘Part of the job. In fact it was exactly the puzzle of poor Estelle’s similar condition that put me in mind of it. Yes—she was pregnant. Over two months gone. And, no, we can’t be certain who the father was. With your known proclivities, Orlando, I should keep my head down and stay off the firing step until the guns fall silent. You’d be surprised how often a week or two either side of the critical day can lead to mayhem. Though in France I believe they grant themselves a little leeway and count to forty.’

‘Yes, well, whichever it is, you’ve worked it out, haven’t you?’ Orlando said unhappily. ‘I ought to have come clean.’

‘I can see why you didn’t. In your position, I do believe I’d have done the same,’ Joe admitted. ‘And I’d have been a bit more forcefully obstructive if a nosy Scotland Yard bugger had been hassling me with impertinent questions. So, all things considered, old mate, you come out of this, in my estimation, covered in glory.’

Orlando looked doubtful. ‘Not much glory in this for anyone, I’d have thought.’

‘But there is. I’m seeing a young, idealistic, carefree Englishman who on 14th July 1911 or thereabouts stumbles on an outcast girl, little more than a child, and takes her under his wing. Feeds her up, shelters her, paints her picture … gets fond of her.’