“We can’t just walk in,” said Roy.

“We’ll call out. Mrs. Triast-Perkins!” yelled Agatha.

Silence.

“Let’s get out of here,” hissed Roy.

Agatha walked in through the open French window and found herself in the over-furnished drawing room where she had previously talked to Sybilla.

Roy hovered just inside, prepared to flee.

Agatha walked through the long drawing room and out into the hall. Perhaps Sybilla was taking an afternoon nap. She stood at the bottom of the curved eighteenth-century staircase and decided that they had better leave. Sybilla probably often left that window open, dating as she did from the days when it was safe to do so.

Agatha half turned away and stumbled over a high-heeled shoe lying on the floor. She picked it up and looked upwards and let out a cry of shock.

Sybilla was hanging by the neck from the rail of the balcony on the first floor. Her face was distorted. She was wearing only one shoe.

Agatha dropped the shoe she was holding and hurried out to join Roy. “She’s dead,” she gasped.

“Murder?”

“Looks like suicide. Outside now, while I call the police.”

Toni and Harry emerged from the gloom of the church and stood blinking in the sunlight. Police cars were racing past and police and detectives were tumbling out of the mobile police unit. Villagers were standing outside their doors.

The vicar came panting up. “What’s happened?” he asked.

“I don’t know.”

“That’s the manor house they’re going to,” said Arthur Chance.

Toni and Harry followed the vicar up to the manor house. But a policeman was already on guard at the gate and they were not allowed to pass.

“That’s Agatha’s car parked outside,” said Toni, looking up the drive. “I hope she’s all right.”

Roy and Agatha sat on the stone steps of the terrace. They had been told not to move until the police were ready for them.