Two other homicides completed the indoor staff. The cook’s name, laughably enough, was Cooke. Among his fellows he was known as Kittiwee, being a lover of cats.

“He actually trained as a chef. He is not,” Hilary had told Troy, “one hundred per cent he-man. He was imprisoned under that heading but while serving his sentence attacked a warder who approached him when he was not in the mood. This disgusting man was known to be a cat-hater and to have practised some form of cruelty. Kittiwee’s onslaught was therefore doubly energetic, and most unfortunately his victim struck his head against the cell wall and was killed. He himself served a painful extension of his sentence.”

Then there was the second houseman, Nigel, who in former years had been employed in the manufacture of horses for merry-go-rounds, and on the creative side of the waxworks industry until he became a religious fanatic and unreliable.

“He belonged to an extreme sect,” Hilary had explained.

“A monastic order of sorts with some curious overtones. What with one thing and another, the life put too heavy a strain upon Nigel. His wits turned and he murdered a person to whom he always refers as ‘a sinful lady.’ He was sent to Broadmoor where, believe it or not, he recovered his senses.”

“I hope he doesn’t think me sinful.”

“No, no, I promise you. You are not at all the type and in any case he is now perfectly rational and composed except for weeping rather extravagantly when he remembers his crime. He has a gift for modelling. If we have a white Christmas I shall ask him to make a snowman for us.”

Finally, Hilary had continued, there was Vincent, the gardener. Later on, when the landscape specialists had completed their operations, there would be a full complement of outside staff. In the meantime there were casual labourers and Vincent.