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.”“When do you last remember using it?”“I know I had it at the Quayles’s dinner party.”“That would be Mr and Mrs Quayle of Mona Lodge?”“That’s right.”“And when was that?”“Nearly a fortnight ago now.The twenty-first, I think it was.I missed it the following weekend and put a notice up on the Monday morning.”“Were any other guests there that evening?”“We were,” Hugo put in.“The three of us.That’s all.”“Right.Well, we’ll need Mr Sheppard’s prints and Miss Winter’s, for elimination purposes.”“And Mrs Clegg’s,” I said.“She handled it, too.”“The Granny?” The inspector looked at me sharply.“When did you see her?”“This afternoon.I wanted to ask her where Ray was.”“Oh, Chloe, really!” Hugo began, but the inspector raised his hand.“Go on, Miss Winter.What did she tell you?”“That I’d find him beneath the coloured stars.” They all stared at me blankly.“As I came out of the telephone box someone started letting off rockets.It suddenly struck me that they were coloured stars, and that was when I – knocked against the barrow.”“My God!” said Neil softly.“Did she say anything else? Anything-” the inspector’s mouth twitched – “that as a Manxman I might be able to accept?”“She went into a trance,” I said expressionlessly, “and – and played back Ray’s last words, to his murderer.”There was total silence.Then the inspector said with an effort, “I presume no names were mentioned?”“No.He just said, ‘What the hell do you want?’”“He? Don’t you mean Mrs Clegg?”“It was Ray’s voice,” I said in a whisper.“Did you hear the other one?”“No.” I shuddered.“He’s still alive, isn’t he?”“What else was said?”“Something like ‘I wouldn’t have said anything’.”“But not what about?”“‘Inclinations’, I think he said.I suppose it was some of Ray’s usual scandalmongering.”The sergeant was writing assiduously in his notebook, his impassive face betraying no flicker of what he thought of mediums and their ways.“It doesn’t narrow the field much.We always assumed the motive was to silence him.Anything else?”“He said he wasn’t alone, that I was there.”“That’s what I’ve been afraid of all along,” Martha said in a low voice.“The painting itself was a give-away,” Hugo pointed out.“Not necessarily.It might have been someone who didn’t know her, but not if he spoke of her by name.”“If it was someone who knew her as Chloe, it more or less brings it down to St.Olaf’s,” Neil said flatly.“But it can’t!” I burst out.“We know them all! How could one of them be a murderer?”The inspector smiled wryly.“Unfortunately murderers aren’t a race apart, Miss Winter.It would be much easier for us if they were.Usually they’re just ordinary people going about their ordinary lives who for some reason or other are suddenly pushed too far.It’s as simple as that, the line dividing them from the rest of us.That, and the grace of God.”His eyes went round our strained faces and he cleared his throat.“Of course, we must remember that Granny Clegg’s trances, realistic as they may seem would hardly count as evidence in a court of law.They’re a guideline, nothing more.Now, to return to your discovery of the body, Miss Winter.Was that the first time you’d noticed the guy?”“No, I saw it several times when I was with Ray.” ‘I always feel sorry for him,’ Ray had said.“The boys from the village have been trundling it round for a week or more to raise money for fireworks,” Hugo confirmed.“How long do you think –?”“I imagine the switch was made on the night of the murder, sir.If our man waited until it was dark, he would just have had time before rigor mortis set in.That’s assuming Mr Kittering was killed straight away.The path lab will be confirming the time of death.”Without Granny’s clue the gruesome disguise might have remained undetected for a while longer; perhaps, I thought shudderingly, until the village children had tried to haul the supposedly straw figure on to their bonfire.As though reading my mind, Neil said quietly, “Thank God they didn’t decide to take the barrow round this week
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