But anyhow it’s all over now. Poor John died getting on for twenty years ago, and we’d been separated for some time before that. I came in for some money from an uncle, so I was able to leave him, and I’ve been living at Melling ever since. My father was the parson there, you remember, so it’s always felt like home. He only lived a year after I came back, but I built myself a house and I’m very comfortable. Now, what about you? You started off as a governess-what on earth made you take up detecting? You know, when I met Alvina Grey-she’s a sort of distant cousin-and she told me all about you and that frightful murder case-the woman with the eternity earrings-well, first of all I thought it couldn’t be you, and then she described you, and I thought perhaps it was, and then I wrote to you and-here we are. But you haven’t told me what made you take it up-detecting, I mean.”

Whatever else the long years had changed, Cecilia Voycey still had Cissy Christopher’s rattling tongue. Miss Silver gave her slight prim cough.

“It is rather difficult to say-a combination of circumstances-I believe I was guided. My scholastic experience has been extremely valuable.”

“You must tell me all about everything!” said Mrs. Voycey with enthusiasm.

She had at this point to draw in very close to the side of the lane in order to avoid two young people standing under the opposite hedge. Miss Silver, observing them with interest, saw a girl in scarlet and a tall young man in grey flannel slacks and a loose tweed jacket. The girl was excessively pretty-really quite unnecessarily so. A singular figure for a country lane on an autumn day, with her flaring clothes, her pale gold hair, her careful complexion. The young man had a dark, tormented look.

Mrs. Voycey waved a hand out of the window, squeezed past them, and explained.

“Carr Robertson. He’s down here on a visit to his aunt, Rietta Cray who brought him up. The girl’s staying there too. He brought her-just like that, you know, without a with your leave or by your leave-at least that’s what Catherine Welby says and she always seems to know all Rietta’s affairs. Manners of the present day! I wonder what my father would have said if one of my brothers had just walked in and said, ‘This is Fancy Bell.’ ”