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request permission to look out of the hostile old hermit’s upper windows. She hoped it wouldn’t come to that, but she must add Mr. Paramount and his servant to her list of suspects.
    She smiled, remembering how reluctant Alec always was to cross anyone off his lists.
    Directly across from the end of the drive was a tile-roofed lych-gate in a brick and flint wall. Beyond, the ancient stone church rose in the middle of its graveyard, where Daisy noted in passing a figure apparently lost in rapt contemplation of a large stone angel. The square, stubby, seventeenth-century tower gave a fine view of the surrounding area, she knew, including
the entire length of Rotherden’s main street. Who had access to the tower, and business there on a rainy autumn afternoon?
    To the left of the church was the Vicarage. A frill of tall pink hollyhocks made a brave effort to disguise the singularly ugly Victorian building. Grey-stuccoed, it was of a size to accommodate a vast Victorian family. From it, Mrs. Osborne could easily have seen Johnnie enter Mrs. LeBeau’s house on the opposite side of the lane. What was more, she would be quite likely to keep a look-out to see how long he stayed.
    Daisy passed between the high gates of Oakhurst, now permanently open, bound in place by the bindweed whose white trumpets nodded from the ornate wrought-ironwork. As she turned towards the village, a tall woman came down Mrs. LeBeau’s front path.
    She wore a tailored linen dress, beige, trimmed with pillar-box red buttons and a matching sash around her slim hips. Unlike Daisy, who was bare-legged, she had on stockings, in the fashionable flesh-coloured tint regarded as immodest by old-fashioned people accustomed to uncompromising black or white. Her broad-brimmed cloche hat was natural straw with a red cockade.
    Somehow the Scarlet Woman succeeded in looking both frightfully smart and not overdressed for a village street.
    Opening her garden gate, she smiled and nodded to Daisy, who responded, “Good evening.” Impulsively she added, “Mrs. LeBeau?”
    â€œYes, I’m Wanda LeBeau.” Her voice was low-pitched, slightly husky. “May I make a guess too? You must be Lady John’s sister, Miss Dalrymple. Our village grapevine is efficient, you see.”
    Daisy laughed. “What village grapevine isn’t?”
    Close to, the femme fatale was obviously older than she
looked from a little distance. Perhaps forty, she had a hint of smile-lines around her full mouth and the beginnings of crow’s-feet at her dark eyes. She was not the sort to entirely eschew make-up, as Daisy did on a fine country afternoon, but it consisted of a mere dusting of powder on her nose and a lightly tinted lip salve. Her hair, just visible beneath the hat, was also dark, unbobbed. Though she was not classically beautiful, Daisy thought her very attractive.
    â€œI’m hurrying to the shop,” said Mrs. LeBeau. “Are you going that way? Shall we walk together?”
    â€œI’d like to, but you can’t want to walk with two grubby children and a large—Oh, blast, where have they got to?” Daisy swung round.
    â€œI rather like children, as a matter of fact,” said Mrs. LeBeau with a throaty chuckle, “but if you don’t mind I’d better get on to the shop before it closes. I hope you find them in one piece! Do drop in for morning coffee tomorrow if you’re free. Eleven o’clock.”
    â€œThank you, I’d love to,” Daisy said sincerely. What luck, her prime suspect inviting her for elevenses!
    But where were the children?
    Just as Daisy started back along the lane, Belinda dashed around the end of the tall hedge, Tinker loping at her heels, barking. “Miss Dalrymple! Aunt Daisy! Come quick! Derek climbed the gate and he’s stuck. He was showing off.”
    Daisy groaned. She reached the end of the carriage drive, and there was her nephew, hanging onto the top