The seventh book in the Country House Crime series, 2012

Three minutes passed before they realized he was dead and another two before it was established how he had died, though any suspicious observer might have argued that at least one of the five people in the room had been aware of both facts all along.

‘Don’t go near him,’ Dr Sylvester-Sale said, removing the cardboard crown from his head.

‘Stop filming. I am talking to you, Augustine. Get the bloody camera out of the way at once!’ As Clarissa Remnant raised her hand, her bracelet in the shape of a coiled serpent glinted ominously.

‘But – how is that possible?’ Basil Hunter said. ‘Are you – are you sure, SS?’

‘Positive.’

‘Why are you still filming, Augustine? Are you out of your mind? Didn’t you hear what I said?’ Clarissa Remnant’s eyes flashed. Her crown was still on her head.

‘We must turn the music off,’ Louise Hunter said. ‘We really must.’

But nobody did. The scratchy LP continued to revolve on the ancient wind-up gramophone with its huge brass horn, and ‘The Bilbao Song’ was followed by ‘Le Roi d’Aquitaine’.

The door opened and a middle-aged woman in glasses entered the room. ‘It’s so hot – I am afraid I felt faint – I don’t think the air-conditioning system is working properly, is it?’ She sounded breathless.