“The men were at breakfast when she reached the quarters, and she ordered the cook to fetch the boat and went with him to bring the body to land. She then went back to the house and telephoned me. The cook… feller by the name of Blaze… substantiated her story in part.

“This being the second drowning in Answerth’s Folly, and the first being medically proved to have been homicide, we thought that Mrs Answerth had been murdered the same way, that is, by being held under the surface and drowned, like Edward Carlow was murdered. On examining the body, Dr Lofty found a red mark about the neck indicating that the woman had been strangled with a light rope or a cord having distinctly bulging strands. However, he would not be definite about this until he had done the post mortem.”

“Was the body clothed?”

“Yes, fully dressed. The air imprisoned by the clothes kept the body floating. When subsequently I visited the house to interview the inmates, I learned that Mrs Answerth was last seen alive when going up to bed. There was no suggestion of suicide.”

“What was the reaction of Mary Answerth when you arrived with the doctor?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary, sir. I didn’t expect to find any difference in her front. She was very angry… and most times she’s angry… and demanded that I get going and arrest the murderer. You know, like being annoyed at having a steer lifted. She roared when we insisted on having the body brought to the morgue, but made no bones about bringing the body to the morgue in her station wagon, she herself driving it. At the morgue she bullied Dr Lofty to get on with his examination so’s she could hand the body over to the undertaker, and I’m thinking that Lofty has purposely delayed his report just to get his own back for what she said to him.”

“She seems unusually masculine,” Bony observed.