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over from Winchester.”
    “Very well, show us to Mr. Yately,” Carmichael said.
    The butler opened the front door and let them into a splendid paneled hall. There were wooden doors leading off in all directions and a curving staircase leading upstairs. The brass of the door handles gleamed. There was one window immediately above the door, which allowed light to fall on an old portrait of a lady in a ruff, accompanied by a little dog, also in a ruff.
    By some magical mechanism known only to servants, the butler had summoned a footman.
    “Show these police gentlemen to the dressing room of the blue bedroom,” he instructed.
    Carmichael liked the ambiguity of “police gentlemen.” Everything about Farthing subtly suggested wealth and privilege and class distinctions very carefully maintained. Then here he came, tramping in police boots to disturb the hierarchies as they were laid down by bringing in an entirely orthogonal power. In civilian circumstances, he would be recognized here as on the very lowest rank of gentry, and Royston would be sent to the servants’ entrance, wherever that was— which he must find out; it might be important.
    The minion bowed, took a step towards the stairs, and looked inquiringly at Carmichael.
    Carmichael, with a quick exchange of glances with Royston, followed obediently. The butler vanished through the door under the portrait, which Carmichael tentatively labeled as likely to lead to the servants’ quarters.

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    He must get hold of a floor plan, or have one drawn up. That would be a job the local police would probably be sufficiently competent to manage.
    “So, where is everyone?” Royston asked the footman.
    The footman looked outraged for a moment, then presumably remembered that he was talking to a policeman. “Her ladyship is resting in her room.” Carmichael immediately placed him as a local. His accent was only a little smoother than Betty at the gate. “His lordship is in the library with some of the guests. Most of the other guests are in the drawing room. Miss Lucy—Mrs.
    Kahn I should say—and
    Mrs. Normanby are looking after Lady Thirkie, who is having hysterics in Miss Dorset’s room.
    Miss
    Dorset was in the kitchen talking to the staff when I left, sir.”
    “And who is Miss Dorset?” Royston asked.
    “Miss Dorset is her ladyship’s cousin, and her secretary-companion,” the footman said.
    Poor relation, Carmichael mentally appended, but surely a secretary-companion shouldn’t be talking to the servants, even if she was one of the family? Carmichael was more interested in Mrs.
    Kahn, anyway, who he remembered, now that he heard the name, from a minor fuss in the newspapers the previous autumn. “English rose plucked by Jew,” the Daily Express had screamed, and even the
    Telegraph had asked more quietly, “Should the daughters of our aristocracy be permitted to mingle their blood with the trash of European Jewry?” Lucy Eversley, yes, he remembered now—there had been photographs, nothing especially pretty, but very determined, which he supposed she’d have to be to come from this home and marry a Jew. Surprising that she was still invited down here for weekends.
    “Is Mr. Kahn here?” he asked.
    “Mr. Kahn is in the library,” the footman said.
    Carmichael filed the fact for consideration. Certainly any Jew would have reason enough to hate old
    Thirkie. He ran his hand along the wooden wall as they went up the stairs. It was as smooth as silk; it must be polished regularly. The stairs were carpeted with a strip of dark blue drugget held down by irons.
    “How many are there on staff?” he asked.
    “I can’t rightly say, sir,” the footman replied. They came to the top of the stairs, the bannister terminating in a carved acorn. “There are those of us who belong to the house and those his lordship and her ladyship bring down with them from London, and just at the moment there are also the visiting staff.”
    “How many on the permanent