"Mrs Bellows discovered the body herself, Madam."
      "I discovered the body meself," echoed Mrs Bellows.
      "Just as you see it now," said Smithers.
      "Ugh!" said Trish.
      "Stretched out across the rug there, with that ghastly look on his face, like as though he'd seen the Devil hisself!" said Mrs Bellows.
      The body of Angus Marley lay, face up in the centre of the room which Lord Doddesley had called his 'Cabinet'. It was a room that was part laboratory and part museum. At its centre was a solid oak bench upon which stood Bunsen burners, a large microscope, a bottle of fine old Laphroaig whisky, an empty tumbler and a bewildering variety of chemical glassware. The walls were adorned with cases containing all manner of biological specimens ranging from a stuffed platypus to preserved snakes in jars of formaldehyde. Elsewhere there were filing cabinets, biological charts, a free-standing nautical globe and several racks containing stainless steel instruments of an apparently surgical application.
      One entire side of the room was taken up by a bookcase. It contained numerous leather-bound volumes of the proceedings of various botanical and zoological societies, plus books on mountaineering and arctic exploration, black magic, voodoo and shamanism. A book devoted to 'Australian Spiders and Other Furry Friends' nestled between a pictorial volume of 'The Erotic Art of the Pharaohs' and a cookery book called 'A Hundred Tasty Snacks From Grubs and Caterpillars'.
      "His Lordship," Chelsea said, "Certainly had eclectic tastes."
      There were also several books written by Lord Doddesley himself and published privately. The first volume that came to hand was called "Spawn of Hell! (A Year In The Life Of A Cycad)". Next she flicked through "Death Came By Dusk! (The Fascinating World Of The Tussocky Marsh Rush". And finally, she perused "An English Lord In The Land Of The Savages! (A first-hand account of my adventures in New Zealand)".
      "Quite a racy writing style," Chelsea commented, "Given the topics under discussion."
      She returned the books to the shelf and stooped to examine the body of Angus Marley. The eyes were wide open, the mouth agape in a silent scream. Chelsea noticed a faint but pungent odour in the air. At first she assumed it to be the smell of the agents used in preservation of biological specimens. Then she spotted a glass tumbler that had rolled beneath the bench. It still contained a trace of a dark brown liquid. She sniffed at it gingerly. It was whisky. The peaty, smoky, heady smell of a fine Islay malt was unmistakable.
      "Ghastly, that's what I calls that look. No other word for it," burbled Mrs Bellows in the background.
      "Shhhhh...." Chelsea held up one hand to command silence. Mrs Bellows's burblings diminished at once.
      "What is that noise?" asked Chelsea.
      "Madam?" - Smithers stepped forward. The two of them listened in silence for a few moments. There was a very quiet but distinct chuff-chuffing sound coming from somewhere nearby.
      "Ah, yes, Madam," said Smithers, "That will be his Lordship's aquaria."
      Smithers walked across to the side of the room, gripped a brass handle fixed upon the right hand side of a bookcase and slid the entire case to one side. It revealed a small room beyond, illuminated by an eerie glow. Chelsea stepped into the room. About twelve feet in length by six feet wide, its walls were obscured by strong metal racks holding dozens of aquariums. The eerie glow emanated from tubular lights suspended over the aquariums. The curious chuff-chuffing noise was produced by several small metallic engines with pistons that pumped air, via a system of plastic tubes, into the aquariums.
      "Lord Doddesley was an amateur aquarist?" observed Chelsea, "How very intriguing."
      "His Lordship has - had, I should say - many, many interests, Madam."
      Chelsea peered into tanks containing strange fish and crustaceans collected from streams, lakes and oceans all over the world. Some tanks contained toads, others contained brightly striped sea snakes and spectacularly-finned Lion Fish. In a particularly imposing aquarium at the far end of the room swam a shoal of tiny octopuses patterned with blue rings of such an intensity that they positively seemed to glow.
      "Yes, indeed," said Chelsea, "Most intriguing."
      Returning to Lord Doddesley's Cabinet, Chelsea conducted a brief examination of the items upon bench. The chemical glassware was cold. A few blue crystals adhered to the sides of one flask but there was no indication that this had been recently used. Turning on its light, she glanced into the microscope and focussed the lens. Presently a small leaf fragment came into view.
      "I think," said Chelsea, "The pieces of this puzzle are beginning to fit together."
     
       
     "Oh, Miss Bunn! Miss Bunn!" screeched Lady Doddesley as she sailed across the library looking like a battle cruiser dressed for combat, "They tell me you've found our murderer!"
     "Not exactly, your Ladyshi..."
     "Bunty," Lady Doddesley corrected, "You really must call me Bunty! So you mean the killer is still among us? Oh, how positively dreadful!"
     Chelsea could not help being struck by the rapidly with which Lady D had dispensed with the business of mourning her husband and had returned to her customary heartiness.
     "It's too early to say," said Chelsea, "I shall need to question one or two of your guests before arriving at a definite conclusion. However, I have every hope that we shall have this matter cleared up before the night is through."
     "Oh, that would be nice!" enthused Lady D, patting the palms of her hand together as though clapping silently. In the next moment, she had turned away from Chelsea to face towards her guests who were still assembled, many of them very much against their will, in the library. Now she was clapping her hands in full earnest. "Quiet everyone!" she commanded, "Please! Please! Quiet! You too, Miss Salgado! Thank you. Now, I'm sure you all know that we are honoured to have among us tonight a very special guest, a woman whose expertise in forensic pathology is matched only by her skill with a pair of curling tongs. I speak, of course, of the one and only Chelsea Bunn."
     Lady D made a commanding gesture to terminate the applause almost before it had started.
     "I am sure it is by now widely known," continued Lady D, "That Doddesley Hall has this very night been the scene of two dreadful crimes. One of which..." and here she took a lace handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed genteelly at the corner of an eye, "...yes, one of which, alas, involves a personal tragedy. However," she exclaimed with vigour as she tucked the handkerchief back into her sleeve, "I am pleased to tell you that Miss Bunn has now solved these murders."
     There was a general murmuring in the room which Lady D once again silenced with a gesture.
     "Miss Bunn now wishes to ask some of you a few questions, after which she will undoubtedly point the finger of blame at the evil doer. Smithers! Lock the doors!"
     As the doors were secured, a tense silence fell upon the room, broken only by the crackling of the fire and the tock-tock-tocking of the grandfather clock. Chelsea glanced around the room and saw that every face, the features strangely sculpted by the flickering shadows of the firelight, was turned upon her.
     Tock-tock-tock went the clock. A log crackled and sent a shower of sparks cascading into the air. Someone coughed. Another person sneezed. Trish Winterbottom, who was sitting, cross-legged on the floor, yawned noisily. And all the time, Chelsea glanced slowly from one face to another, fixing each in turn with a penetrating gaze before finally.... "Murder!" she yelled. Trish jumped visibly. At the back of the room someone spluttered with a sound that might have indicated choking on a denture. "Murder," she repeated sombrely, pointing a finger into the darkness, "Is a heinous crime!
     "And tonight a murderer has been amongst us. First came the death, in highly suspicious circumstances, of the Earl of Doddesley, our host. As if that were not terror enough, we were soon to discover another dead body - that of Lord Doddesley's colleague, Angus Marley. Two deaths. Two locked rooms. Two different murderers? Or just the one?"
     Applause came unexpectedly from the far corner of the room. Chelsea could just make out the sparrow-like figure of the Marchioness of Gribbleford, who was clapping excitedly and crying out, "Bravo! Oh, bravo!"
     Presently, Monsieur Parmentier, who was sitting nearby, had a few words with her, at which point the Marchioness was persuaded to fall silent once again, though not without protest - "But Monsieur," she was heard to say, "This is so terribly exciting, don't you think? I mean, two locked rooms. Two murders...."
     "None of us shall feel truly safe," Chelsea continued, "Until the perpetrator, or perpetrators, of these dreadful crimes is found."
     "You mean to tell us, you still don't know who he is?" said Dolores Salgado.
     "He?" said Chelsea, "Or possibly she."
     At this, Dolores Salgado said something in Spanish which does not merit translation.
     "In fact," said Chelsea, "I believe I do know," ("Hoorah!" cried Lady Doddesley), "But first there are one or two loose ends that need to be tied up. Let us first review the established facts. A few weeks ago, the late Lord Doddesley returns from a year long mission to the Queensland rainforests of northern Australia. While on this expedition, he is accompanied and assisted by the ambitious young biologist, the late Angus Marley. On his return, the Queensland Government decides to honour Lord Doddesley by sending him a fine specimen of an exceedingly rare, newly-discovered species of a plant known as the Byfield Cycad."
     At this, a French accent could be heard to mumble, "Rare? Pha! It is a common-or-garden variety and nothing more!"
     Chelsea continued without pausing, "Lord Doddesley decides to throw a party to show this remarkable plant to his most esteemed colleagues and co-workers..."
     "Not to mention family, friends and hairdressers," interjected Lady Doddesley.
     "But, as each person drove through the wintry Devonshire darkness," Chelsea went on, "Little could they imagine the terrible deeds which were to take place at the Manor that very night. Murder, my lords, ladies and gentlemen. Murder!
     "Lord Doddesley was last seen alive at around 10 o'clock this evening." No sooner had she said this than the grandfather wheezed softly and struck the hour of One. "Yesterday evening," Chelsea corrected herself, "It was then at about then that Mrs Bellows observed his lordship in bitter argument with his close colleague, Angus Marley. The next time Lord Doddesley was seen, he was dead, his lifeless corpse draped across the chaise longue of his study, in the very shadow of the Byfield cycad itself. The study door was locked from the inside. I have been assured that there are only two keys to his lordship's study. One was in the possession of Mrs Bellows. The other was found inside the study, still inserted into the lock of the door."
     "Heavens!" gasped the Marchioness of Gribbleford, "How positively inexplicable!"
     "So it seems," said Chelsea, "But perhaps there are circumstances in this case which are not quite as they seem. Let us now consider the possible motives. Here in this room, at this very moment, are some of the most eminent of Lord Doddesley's rivals in the world of botanical exploration, classification and discovery. Who is to tell what bitter rivalries and grievances might have existed between any one of them and Lord Doddesley? Monsieur Jean-Charles Henri Napoleon Parmentier, for example..."
     "À votre service!" exclaimed the Frenchman.
     "One of the world's greatest cycad experts, Monsieur, are you not?"
     "If you will pardon my correction, my dearest miss," oozed Monsieur Parmentier, " Pas 'un des' mais simplement 'le'. 'Ow you say? Not 'one of' but just 'The'."
     "I stand corrected. The world's greatest cycad expert. Monsieur Parmentier has made no secret of his contempt for Lord Doddesley's scholarship."
     "That is because he was a pig-headed buffoon!" agreed the Frenchman.
     "And indeed, I believe I am right to say that Monsieur Parmentier has even gone so far as to make his contempt known in some of the most prestigious of botanical journals."
     "Absolument. Mais quand même, I did not kill 'im. A buffoon he may 'ave been but an 'armless one. I do not make a 'abit of killing such people. You 'ave my word on that."
     "And what of Angus Marley?" asked Chelsea.
     "Ah yes. he was not so 'armless," Monsieur Parmentier agreed, "He was an arrogant fool who stole more research than 'e ever did 'imself. I think maybe I can imagine bumping 'im off if I ever 'ad a hargument with 'im. But I did not. That is all I can say."
     "Then," continued Chelsea, "There is Professor Spondlewith-Merryvole."
     "Oh, Good Heavens!" exclaimed the Professor, "You can't possibly believe that I had a hand in this!"
     "Lord Doddesley was not just interested in cycads, Professor, was he?"
     "Why, why, I really couldn't say."
     "Oh but I think you could, Professor," Chelsea insisted, "I happened to notice a book in Lord Doddesley's study. A book written by Lord Doddesley himself. It was on the subject rather dear to your heart. It was indeed devoted to none other than the Tussocky Marsh Rush!"
     "Oh, dear, dear! Oh, my, my!" - Professor Spondlewith-Merryvole had suddenly become quite pale and was gasping nervously like a goldfish in a bowl.
     "Would I be correct in surmising that Lord Doddesley's work on the tussocky marsh rush might have overlapped, to some degree, with your own?"
     "Oh dear, dear, not just overlapped," said the Professor, "No, no, overlapped is jot the right word at all. Copied, yes indeed, copied would be a more apposite description. My own book on the tussocky marsh rush appeared in a limited print, you see, just two years before his lordship printed his own book. It was my lifetime's work. Yes, indeed. But of course very few people read it, outside of the universities and the great research institutions. The tussocky marsh rush fraternity is, I fear, a somewhat small one. When Lord Doddesley's book was published I could hardly believe what I was reading. It was my own work, some of it verbatim, or almost so. But his lordship had added some elements of a more sensationalist nature. Anecdotes, tales of adventure, some rather unscientific elaborations on the sexual aspects of the tussocky marsh rush. And lots and lots of coloured pictures. Even the title was hardly befitting a work of academic scholarship. 'Death Came By Dusk!' he called it. I never really understood why. The book became a runaway success, a veritable bestseller."
     "While your own book languished in obscurity?"
      "Quite so. Quite so. Oh, but look here, I say! I mean, really! You don't think I? You don't think I killed..."
     "No," said Chelsea, "I do not think you killed Lord Doddesley."
     "Oh, thank heaven. I thought for a moment...."
     "Of course," said Chelsea, "His Lordship was not the only victim here tonight."
     "Marley! You mean you think I did away with Marley?"
     "That," said Chelsea, "remains to be seen."
      A log on the fire crackled suddenly, sending the shadows wavering eerily across the room.
     "If I might be so bold," piped up the voice of Lady Doddesley, "It seems to me, Miss Bunn, that you have dispensed with all the obvious suspects. The Professor, Monsieur Parmentier..."
     Monsieur Parmentier harrumphed at this and muttered something to the effect that he had never been a suspect and, even if he had been, he certainly had not been anything so menial as an obvious one.
     "So," said Lady D, "Does that mean that we are no nearer to solving this mystery?"
     "Not at all," said Chelsea, "In the first case, I have certainly not accounted for all the obvious suspects. For example, what of Mrs Bellows the housekeeper?"
     "Oh Lor!" cried Mrs. Bellows, "You can't think 'twas I, I hopes?"
     "Well, it is certainly a fact that you were lighting the fire in Lord Doddesley's study shortly before his death. We have it on your own admission that you were the only person, other than Lord Doddesley himself, who had keys to his study. I would also be correct, I think, to surmise that you had the keys to the room known as the Cabinet, in which Angus Marley's body was subsequently found." (Mrs Bellows nodded silently), "And by whom was Marley's body found? By you, Mrs Bellows. The body was found by you!"
     "So 'twas, Miss! Lor' alive! Now you mentions it, the finger of fate do seem to point at me, don't it!"
     Moreover, you were also the last person to see his Lordship alive."
     "Ah, no, if you please miss, 'twas not I. The last person to see his Lordship alive was, was...."
     "Yes, Mrs Bellows?"
     "It was Mr Marley, miss."
     "Unfortunately, Mrs Bellows, it seems that Mr Marley is not in a position to confirm that assertion. So, you see, we must deduce that you had the opportunities to commit both murders. All we need to find now is the motive and..."
     "Oh, miss, miss!" sobbed Mrs Bellows, "The evidence is all agin' me, for sure it is!"
     "But you are not guilty, Mrs Bellows. Indeed you are not. I did not for one moment think you were."
     "But miss, you was just this minute saying..."
     "I was merely saying what others might have said, Mrs Bellows. I can instantly prove that you could not have murdered Lord Doddesley. The room was, after all, locked from the inside. Lord Doddesley's keys, you recall, were still in the lock. The fact that you have another set of keys to that room is, therefore, quite irrelevant.
     "In any case, there are plenty of others here who might equally be added to our list of suspects. However, let me turn to the crucial evidence in this matter. When we found Lord Doddesley's body, he had in his hand a gold locket bearing the inscription: "Yours, always. D. S.". The locket contained a lock of black hair. It was the hair," (here Chelsea paused for effect), "Of Miss Dolores Salgado."
     Everyone in the room seemed to gasp in unison.
     "Ha! And so what?" - Dolores Salgado stood up and, with a fierce curl of the lip, spat out her words with undisguised vitriol, "So, Miss Chelsea Bunn! You think that I have an affair with the fat English Lord and that I kill him in a fit of passion? Ha! I spit upon all fat English Lords, like so!" - and here, indeed, she did spit - much to the dismay of Professor Spondlewith-Merryvole who happened to be sitting directly in front of her at the time.
     "But, my dear, Miss Salgado," murmured the Marchioness of Gribbleford, "How can we be quite certain that you are telling us the unalloyed truth?"
     "What you mean?" hissed Salgado.
     "Well, how do we know that you did not have a secret liaison with his Lordship? After all, he may have been a little on the mature side, but by heavens, there was fire in his loins, still!"
     "Nancy!" exclaimed Lady Doddesley.
     "I am only surmising," the Marchioness said.
     "Well, I should hope so," said Lady Doddesley, "Though one can never quite be certain. You have always been a little loose in the morals department."
      "So!" Dolores Salgado erupted, "You think I have the affair with the fat English Lord and then I kill him? But, tell me this - why should I do this?"
     "Yes, that is a problem," conceded the Marchioness, "Miss Salgado has to have a good motive for killing him, I suppose? Or then again, let's consider another possibility. Perhaps somebody found out about Miss Salgado's secret liaison with Lord Doddesley and, in a fit of jealousy, bumped the old man off?"
     "Well, really, Nancy," said Lady Doddesley, "Who on earth would do such a thing?"
     "I was wondering that myself, Bunty. And d'you know, the only person I can think of is you! I mean, the jealous wife and all that. Classic motive, I should say."
     "Oh do shut up, Nancy!" tutted Lady D, "You really do talk such a load of perishing bollocks!"
     "Ahem, ladies, ladies," intervened Chelsea, "If we might perhaps continue this line of discussion at some other time? Now then, returning for a moment to Miss Salgado. It is a fact, is it not, that you met Lord Doddesley while in Australia, your family having established a successful wine estate in that country?"
     "It is true," Miss Salgado agreed, "The town where we live is small and my family often socialises with foreign visitors. Lord Doddesley and Mr Marley stayed at our villa on many occasions. But I tell you this. I knew Lord Doddesley socially, not carnally. I swear, I have never give my body to him! Never!"
     "I accept that," Chelsea stated with slow deliberation, "Neither your body nor your gold locket was given to Lord Doddesley. But both were given, and freely given I venture to suggest, to Mr Angus Marley!"
     Another gasp ran around the room.
     "So!" cried Dolores Salgado, with a dramatic flick of the wrist, "You are not maybe so stupid as you look, Miss Chelsea Bunn."
     "But how, we might ask, did Lord Doddesley come into the possession of that locket?"
     "How you think I know? It is you who are the big detective, no? You figure it out!"
     "Did she say 'detective'?" muttered the Marchioness of Gribbleford, "But I thought she was a hairdresser..."
     "Excuse me, Miss Bunn, I don't like to interrupt," interrupted Lady Doddesley, "But might we not reasonably surmise that both Mr Marley and my husband had a bit of a fling with Miss Salgado...?"
     "Bunty! I say!" muttered the Marchioness of Gribbleford.
     "Oh come along, Nancy," Lady D reproached her, "We are women of the world. You don't think I didn't know about my husband's little peccadilloes. I am quite certain that, when men find themselves under canvas in the sultry heat of the jungle, with only other sweaty men for company, the presence of a woman of Miss Salgado's type must prove (what shall we say?), something of a 'distraction'?
     "So, for the sake or argument, let us assume that Binky (that is to say, my husband) and Angus were rivals for Miss Salgado's affections. Now, let me see if I can reconstruct the tragic course of events that unfolded here tonight. We know, from Mrs Bellows's account that Angus Marley and my husband quarrelled earlier. Might we not infer that the nature of this quarrel was nothing other than jealousy? Yes, yes, I see it now. Both men are inflamed with passion for Dolores Salgado. Neither of them can bear to think of the other grinding and sweltering in her hotbed of passion. They call one another terrible names. They threaten one another, and then.... and then, my husband sees the locket on his rival's neck. The locket from Miss Salgado, proclaiming her sordid love. He tears it madly from Angus's throat. He opens it and sees that it contains a lock of hair from the woman he loves. He calls Angus a bounder and a blackguard. Angus flares up in anger. He can take much, but being called a bounder to his face is the final straw. In a blind fury, he strikes my husband!"
     "There was no sign of such a blow," Chelsea noted.
     "Well then, let's say he uses some secret technique that he learnt in the orient. Pressing an artery at a certain pressure point. Such techniques are not unknown. And besides, my husband had a bad heart, you know, so it really wouldn't have taken all that much to see him off. Binky collapses to the floor."
     "He was found on the chase longue," said Chelsea.
     "He collapses to the chaise longue," Lady D continued, "Angus no doubt is shocked, when he realises what he has done. And so, in a fit of remorse, he runs off and commits suicide. There, I think you'll find that is a perfectly plausible explanation."
     "Yes," said Chelsea with as much diplomacy as she could muster, "Up to a point, your Ladyship. The point in question being the, er, locked rooms. Both Angus and Lord Doddesley, you recall, were found in locked rooms. If you can explain how your husband managed to lock his study from the inside, after Angus had left him for dead..."
     "Oh, well," said lady D, "That's easy. Angus only thought he was dead. But no sooner does Angus leave the room than my husband suddenly feels a little better. Naturally he decides to lock the door in case his assailant should return. But, alas! Too late! Having locked the door, he relapses and collapses, stone dead upon the chaise-longue."
     "Well...." said Chelsea, "I suppose that is a possibility. However, that still leaves the problem of Angus's suicide. I'm that I cannot imagine why, if Angus were really in the kind of despair that you describe, he would seek out Lord Doddesley's Cabinet of all places in which to dispatch himself."
     "Oh well," tutted Lady Doddesley petulantly, "If you will insist on getting bogged down with trivialities..."
     "If you will forgive me for being blunt, your ladyship, I am afraid to say that your explanation, though a very good one in some respects, is not entirely supported by the evidence. I admit that, earlier this evening, I too was seduced into believing that it was Angus who had killed Lord Doddesley. However, I am now quite certain that he is not our killer."
     "But if that's the case," Lady Doddesley said, "Then that must mean that the murdered is still among us. In this very room! Well, I'll be ratted!"
     "A murderer?" somebody muttered, "Did somebody say a..."
     "In this room...?" another voice piped up.
     "Someone's been murdered in this room, did you say?"
     In a matter of moments the muttering was replaced by yelling and the yelling soon gave way to a mass movement as people got to their feet and surged towards the doors. Smithers, who was resolutely guarding the doors, was having considerable difficulty in maintaining the appropriate degree of subservience to a slightly hysterical duchess, while at the same time defying her demands that the doors be unlocked.
     Chelsea clapped her hands twice and shouted in a volume of which one would have hardly thought her capable, "Silence!" - in a moment, silence fell. Chelsea glowered at the duchess whose hands were still clasped around Smithers' throat. "Sit!" yelled Chelsea. With eyes wide open, looking for all the world like a frightened bushbaby, the duchess at once slunk off into the nearest arm-chair. "And the rest of you!" Chelsea roared.
     "You heard her!" the mouse-like voice of Trish Winterbottom squeaked commandingly.
     In a rustle of designer silk and satin, the assembled throng gradually retook their seats. There were, to be sure, several grumbles to be heard. The recently-hysterical duchess was complaining about the dreadful quality of servants these days; Monsieur Parmentier, speaking in French, said something quite unrepeatable about the bowel movements of the British aristocracy; and Dolores Salgado said, in quite a load voice, that if every one of the people in that room had their throat cuts before the night was out, the human race would be none the poorer.
     "Thank you," Chelsea said when an approximation of silence had once again claimed the room, "As I was about to say. There is nothing to fear. The murderer is no longer in this room."
     "You mean to say he's scarpered?" asked the Marchioness of Gribbleford.
     "I mean to say," said Chelsea, "That he is dead."
     "Dead?" cried Lady Doddesley.
     "Absolutely and irrefutably deceased," Chelsea said, "For, is it not transparently obvious by now who the murderer is?"
     "But," protested Lady D, "When I suggested it was Angus Marley, you yourself said that..."
     "No, your Ladyship. It was not Angus Marley," Chelsea explained patiently, "I'm sorry to have to tell you that the murderer was your husband."      
 

    The following morning was crisp and bright. Sun flooded through the huge windows into the breakfast room as Chelsea and Trish strolled along the considerable length of the sideboard, taking the lids from heated platters, picking out a crisp slice of bacon here, a spoonful of creamy scrambled egg there, here a sausage, there some mushrooms, first a glass of orange juice then a dish of stewed figs. And last of all some slices of toast and a few scoops of porridge from a silver porringer.
     "So," said Trish, yawning widely, "Are you going to tell me or aren't you?"
     Chelsea took one final slice of brioche before sitting down at a long, but completely deserted, oak table. "Tell you what?" she said, as a maid flittered in with a steaming pot of coffee which she deftly poured into tiny bone-china cups which she placed, along with two small jugs of cream, to the right of Chelsea and Trish's plates.
     "You know what," Trish said, "How you solved the murder."
     "Ah, that," said Chelsea, wearily, "But isn't it all too, too obvious?"
     "You know it isn't!" snapped Trish.
     Through the window, Chelsea noted that a thaw had begun. Icicles were starting to melt and some patches of grass were slowly appearing through the blanket of snow covering the lawn. Two police cars and an ambulance were visible from the window and Chelsea knew that there were at least two more police vehicles at the front of the house. She could hear the unmistakable, pompous hubbub of a provincial police murder investigation proceeding from the direction of the drawing room.
     "Well, said Chelsea," sipping at her coffee, "As soon as I realised that Dolores Salgado had had affairs with both Lord Doddesley and Angus Marley, the rest simply slotted together like the pieces of a jigsaw."
     "But she swore that she didn't have an affair with Lord Doddesley!" protested Trish.
     "An obvious lie," Chelsea said, "After all, consider the golden locket containing a curl of her hair and bearing the inscription, 'Yours always, D.S.' Now, as you will recall, even though it was found in Lord Doddesley's hand, Miss Salgado was quite insistent that she had never given the locket to his lordship."
     "Well, that only goes to show that maybe she didn't have an affair with Lord D, then, don't it?"
     "Quite the contrary," said Chelsea, "What possible reason could there be for one man to rip a locket from another man's neck? The answer, my dear Trish, is simple. The reason is jealousy. Lord Doddesley sees the locket about the neck of Angus Marley, his rival for the affections of Miss Salgado. He seizes it furiously, and thus it was that he was clasping the locket at the moment of death."
     "But," mumbled Trish through a mouthful of Cumberland sausage and fried tomato, "If that's the case, how come he ended up dead in his study and Angus ended up dead in his Cabinet? And how come both rooms were locked? And how come..."
     "I have to confess that had me puzzled for a while. After we'd found his lordship's body but could not find Angus, I jumped to the same rather prosaic conclusion as everybody else. I assumed that Angus had killed Lord Doddesley. But that did not explain how the study came to be locked from the inside. Angus could not have done that. And it didn't seem to me at all probable that Lord Doddesley would have done it in the few anguished, painful moments before his death.
     "But when we found that Angus too had been killed, the solution to the problem became as clear as day. Until that point, I had considered everyone in this house to be a potential suspect - with one exception. That exception was Lord Doddesley himself. In my experience, the one person whom it is generally safe to presume innocent in a murder case is the victim. As long as Lord Doddesley was the only victim, therefore, it was clear that he could not be the murderer.
     "But when a second victim appeared, that changed everything. At the time, I had already considered that the rivalry between Angus and Lord Doddesley might have been at the heart of the matter. When Mrs Bellows told us that the two men were last seen arguing fiercely together, that only served to strengthen my conviction.
     "As long as I considered Lord Doddesley to be a victim, therefore, I had to consider Angus to be the prime suspect. But when Angus's body was discovered, I realised I'd been approaching this problem from quite the wrong direction.
     "Now that Angus had become a victim, I was able to admit the possibility that Lord Doddesley had been the perpetrator of the crime. If that were indeed the case, then the evidence of the gold locket found in Lord Doddesley's hand, suddenly made sense.
     "You will recall that the last occasion when anyone saw the two men alive was when Mrs Bellows was sent in haste to light a fire in his lordship's study. I was particularly struck by Mrs Bellows' insisting that Lord D was in a 'a fearful temper' that she had neglected to light the fire earlier. It struck me as most singular that his lordship should consider such a trivial matter to be of so great an importance, though I could not at first conceive of a reason for his anger. After all, by all accounts, he and Angus were only going to the study to look at the cycad for a few moments. The other guests would no doubt have come to the room later in the evening, by which time the fire would have been blazing away merrily. So would it really have been such a tragedy if the room had been a touch on the chilly side?
     "Anyway, let us assume that Lord D and Angus now go to the study. They look at the cycad. Apparently they are not in agreement about the precise species of the thing. You will remember from what Mrs Bellows told us that Marley was very much of Monsieur Parmentier's opinion - namely that the plant was by no means as rare as his lordship had claimed. As is the way with people of a botanical bent, they no doubt turn to examining its finer points in an attempt to establish the truth. Maybe they inspect the shape of the leaves, count the number of leaflets and measure the thickness of the stem? And so what next? Are we to assume that they have a fierce argument that leads to both their deaths?"
     "I suppose so," mumbled Trish.
     "No! No! That really won't do! Not if Lord D is our murderer. If he is the murderer, then the two men must now leave the study and go to the room that Lord Doddesley's calls his Cabinet but which is, to all intents and purposes, his laboratory.
     "Here, on the bench, stands a microscope. You will recall that when we visited the Cabinet, the microscope was focussed upon a fragment of a leaf. Given the nature of their disagreement, it at once seemed to me highly probable that this fragment had been taken from the Byfield Cycad itself - an assumption whose correctness has since been verified, at my request, by Monsieur Parmentier.
     "And yet, whatever their argument may have been, it would seem that the two men were still on sufficiently good terms with one another to share a drink here. You recall the tumbler I found near Angus's body. You may also recall that, from the smell of the liquid in this tumbler, I identified it as a fine Islay whisky. Indeed, the bottle from which the whisky was poured was still standing upon the bench, next to his lordship's Bunsen burner. A fine 25-year old Laphroaig. A whisky that is noted for its strong, peaty flavour and its equally strong smoky - some would say 'medicinal' - smell. If one were to choose a drink that was, in every respect, ideal for masking the scent and flavour of a poison, a 25-year old Laphroaig would be it."
     "So," said Trish, as she attacked a plate of Arbroath Smokies and oysters, "You're saying that Lord D poisoned Angus?"
     "Not at once, of course. First they argue."
     "About the cycad?"
     "About Dolores Salgado."
     "Ah..."
     "It turns vicious. Angus taunts Lord D. He points out, in unflattering terms, his lordship's somewhat advanced age, the various deficiencies of his physique, he says that Dolores does not love him and that she never had. He says, in fact, that he, Angus Marley, is the man whom Dolores Salgado loves and that they plan to marry?"
     "Marry?" spluttered Trish, showering the linen tablecloth with fragments of smoked fish, "How did you find that out?"
     "A guess," Chelsea said modestly, "As final cruel blow, Angus shows the golden locket to Lord Doddesley. His Lordship snatches it away. Angus protests. But it is already too late for him. He has drunk the poisoned whisky and is now slumping to the floor, gasping for air."
     "Why gasping?"
     "You recall the terrible look upon his face - ' like as though he'd seen the Devil hisself', to quote Mrs Bellows. We won't know for sure the cause of death until blood samples have been sent for analysis, but I'd say that everything suggests a bad case of Hapaloclaena maculosa."
     "Yer wha'...?"
     "Otherwise known as the Blue-ringed octopus. A tiny, Australian creature, with one of the most deadly venoms known to man. I happened to notice a tank containing several of the beasts in the aquarium room adjoining the Cabinet. As you are probably aware, Trish, a bite from that particular species of octopus can quickly result in respiratory paralysis which frequently proves fatal. I imagine the toxin is every bit as debilitating when administered with a fine old malt whisky."
      "Hmmmm.... But that still doesn't explain how Lord D came to be killed. Or how both rooms came to be locked."
     "There's nothing mysterious about the Cabinet being locked," said Chelsea, "Unlike Lord D's study, that room was locked from the outside. I think we can safely assume that Lord Doddesley himself locked it in order to prevent any wandering guests from entering the room and discovering Angus's body.
     "But what happened next, you are wondering? What happened after his lordship left Angus dead or dying on the floor of his Cabinet? Obviously, Lord D must have returned to his study, since that's where we found his body. Having entered the study, he no doubt locked the door to prevent anyone barging in while he was busy about an important piece of business."
     Chelsea paused. Trish said nothing.
     "Well," said Chelsea, sipping at her coffee, "Aren't you going to ask what this important piece of business might have been?"
     "That's pretty obvious, isn't it?" said Trish through mouthfuls of kedgeree, "He was hiding the poison bottle."
     "Hmmm," said Chelsea, "That is, er, certainly a possibility. Pass the marmalade would you?"
     "He was then, wasn't he?" persieted Trish.
     "Well, yes, as a matter of fact he was!" snapped Chelsea, scraping butter onto her toast with an air of ferocity, "But how did you know that?"
     "The Case of the Stuffed Armadilo."
     "I bneg your pardon?"
     "You remember. The Scunthorpe taxidermist locked the room, hid the bottle and then escaped through the rubbish chute and returned to the rubberwear seminar before anyone had even realised he'd left. Everyone said he had the perfect alibi. And then, just when the police had given up any hope of nabbing the bloke, you picked up a scalpel and cried out, 'Open that armadillo!' It was one of your most brilliant triumphs."
     "Oh, ah, yes, that," said Chelsea, smiling once again, "A mere trifle."
     "Well, that's what made me think that Lord D must have gone into his study to hide the poison."
     "Quite," said Chelsea, "Well remembered, Trish! Blue-ringed octopus toxin is, it has to be said, rather a rare commodity in rural Devonshire. I am quite certain that the police pathologists would not even think to check for traces of it in Angus Marley's blood. Unless, of course, an empty phial of the poison had conveniently been left near the deceased's body. Lord D realised he would need to hide it somewhere that nobody would think to look. But, in the event, his choice of hiding place proved to be rather unfortunate."
     "Where?"
     "In the pot of the Byfield Cycad. It was that decision which led to his death. I have to admit that I am not entirely certain whether it was in his mind to hide the phial in the pot from the outset or whether he was planning to hide it elsewhere - behind one of the books in his bookcase perhaps? - but was disturbed by someone at the door? Lady Doddesley told us that she had called at the study, looking for her husband, and had found the door locked. I rather think there would have been a nice irony in Lady Doddesley's knocking at the door of the study causing her husband to act hastily, and foolishly, by hiding the phial where he did."
     "How do you know he hid it in the pot?" asked Trish, "You haven't even looked there, have you?"
     "Certainly not!" said Chelsea, "I value my life too much. However when the local constabulary arrived here earlier, I informed them of my suspicions and a constable was sent to investigate. Armed with a pair of leather hawking gauntlets, which Lady Doddesley was kind enough to provide, he scratched in the soil around the roots of the cycad and quickly discovered the phial."
     "Leather gauntlets?" mused Trish, between mouthfuls of devilled kidneys, "Why leath...?"
     "Why leather gauntlets?" said Chelsea, "Just to be on the safe side. Though there really wasn't much danger since the fire in the room had long since died away and I had particularly asked Mrs Bellows to open the door from the study to the passage and also to open the doors from passage to the outside world. With all those doors left open for a good half hour before the constable searched the cycad pot, the risk was really quite minimal "
     Trish had stopped eating. She was staring blankly at Chelsea. It was an expression which Trish invariably reserved for the final stages of Chelsea's expositions of one of her fiendishly brilliant solutions to a case.
     "What the bloody heck...?" Trish said at last.
     "...am I talking about?" Chelsea said, "I'll tell you. I am talking about the thing that killed Lord Doddesley. You will recall that when he saw Mrs Bellows, last night, his first concern was that she should immediately light the fire in his study. When I realised that Angus had been poisoned, and in all probability by octopus poison, I started to think about other poisonous animals that might be capable of delivering a fatal bite. When I observed the book about Australian Spiders in Lord D's Cabinet, it reminded me at once of the humorous story Angus had told earlier in the evening about the time a golden Orb Spider had fallen into Lord D's baked beans and given him such a scare."
     "But I thought he said that the spider was harmless."
     "And so it is, so it is. But not all its relatives are equally harmless. Indeed, Australia is blessed with a large variety of extremely poisonous spiders including the notorious red-back and several varieties of funnelweb Spider. What sweet revenge it would be for Lord Doddesley to have his rival killed by a spider's bite! Angus, who had countless times handled some of the most deadly of spiders in the wild, would finally meet his maker after being bitten by one of those same spiders here in the cosy surroundings of an English country house."
     "But..."
     "Quite right, Trish! It was not to be. His Lordship had forgotten to have the fire lit in the study until it was far too late. The room can hardly have had the chill taken off it by the time the two men arrived there."
     "Yeah, but..."
     "But what difference would that have made? Glad you asked, Trish! Spiders, as you know, are cold-blooded creatures. The Sydney Funnelweb Spider (for such it was) would certainly be dormant in an unheated room in the middle of a British winter. Lord Doddesley had placed his spider in the pot at the base of the cycad. No doubt the room must have been warm enough for the beast's comfort at that stage for, in the manner of its kind, it immediately set about building its gossamer funnel and sat inside it, out of view. Only once the funnel was completed was the temperature of the room allowed to fall low enough to maintain the creature in a subdued and somnolent state.
     "No doubt Lord D had deliberately started the argument over the cycad's species with Angus. He planned to ask Angus to examine the plant, maybe to look at its trunk or pick off the leaf that we found beneath the microscope. In any case, he wanted Angus to disturb the spider which would then rush from its funnel and administer a fatal bite.
      "But, due to the fact that Mrs Bellows had forgotten to light the fire earlier, the room was still quite cold when the two men arrived, the spider was asleep and so nothing happened. Which was why Lord D was obliged to put his standby plan into action, and poison Angus with the octopus toxin. In any case, I have to say, it is rather doubtful if a bite from a Sydney Funnelweb would actually have killed a young, healthy chap such as Angus. Although painful, the bite of the spider is generally only fatal to children, old people or people with weak hearts."
     "And Lord Doddesley...."
     "...had a weak heart. As Lady Doddesley told us. Well remembered, Trish! You really are in fine fettle this morning."
     "But why did the spider bite Lord D even though it didn't bite Angus?"
     "The fire, Trish," said Chelsea with a flourish of her coffee cup, "By the time his lordship returned to his study, clutching the poison bottle in one hand and the golden locket in the other, the fire had been blazing away for half an hour or more so the room had warmed up nicely."
     "And the spider would be awake..."
     "...and in a mean mood," concluded Chelsea.
     "But there's still one other thing that you haven't explained," said Trish.
     "Really? And what may that be?"
     "The note. The one that Lady D received, saying that Lord D's life was in danger. If Lord D was the murderer all along, who wrote the note?"
     "Why he did, of course!" said Chelsea, "How else would he have explained Angus's death?"
     "Yer what...?"
     "Look. You have to think how things might have turned out if Lord D's plans had proceeded as he had intended. Angus would have been bitten by the spider and collapsed and died in Lord D's study. We'd then be searching for Angus's murderer. Everything would point to Lord Doddesley, naturally. It happened in his study, he was known to have argued many times with Angus, no doubt we should eventually have found out about the two men's romantic rivalry for Dolores Salgado's affections. And then, of course, we should certainly have discovered the spider nestling in its funnel at the base of the cycad.
     "But then Lady D would produce the threatening note and quite a different solution would appear before us. Or so it would seem. Now it would seem that Angus had written the note and was planning to murder his lordship. Some bright spark would have brought our attention to the fact that Angus specialised in poisonous creepy crawlies including spiders. The conclusion to which we should have been expected to jump would therefore be that Angus had planned to secrete the spider in a place where it would be sure to administer a fatal bite to his Lordship but the beast had, instead, bitten Angus himself. Hoist with his own petar and all that."
     "His own what?"
     "A literary allusion, my dear Trish, which you may safely ignore."
     "So," said Trish, "There really wasn't anything very mysterious about that locked room after all."
     "Well...." said Chelsea, who'd begun to suspect that the brilliance of her deduction was already on its way to becoming tarnished by familiarity, "I wouldn't go quite that far."
     Suddenly there was a loud crashing sound and an angry yell from beyond the door of the breakfast room. Chelsea and Trish leapt from their seats and dashed into the hallway. They were just in time to see four constables and a gentleman of the Inspector class, struggling to lift a coffin which they had just dropped on the floor.
     "Lord Doddesley?" enquired Chelsea.
     "Angus Marley," answered the Inspector-type, before continuing with his verbal abuse of the four constables. Through the open doorway at the far end of the hall, Chelsea could see that another coffin had been placed in the snow next to a large police van which was substituting for a Hearse.
     "Ah, Miss Bunn! Miss Bun!" - Chelsea turned to see the forbidding figure of Lady Doddesley bearing down upon her from the other end of the passageway.
     "Shitbags," muttered Chelsea under her breath, "If there's one thing that sets my teeth on edge it's having to console the grieving relatives."
     "I'm so glad you're still here," quavered Lady D as she drew up alongside, "I thought you might have bogged orf."
     "I'm so terribly, terribly sorry..." said Chelsea.
     "Why?" squealed Lady D, "What's happened?"
     "Lord Doddesley, I mean."
     "Oh never mind all that," said Lady D, "These things happen, don't you know. But come, come, my dear, it's Christmas Morning! Season of Joy and Goodwill and all that rot. I've gathered our guests together in the drawing room for a drop of mulled wine and a few mince pies. Señor Mundola and his Mambo Playboys have graciously agreed to entertain us, for a small consideration, with a Latin American arrangement of some Mediaeval English hymns,"
     "Oooh! Mince pies!" said Trish, "My favourites!"
     "Yes, yes, now do come along, the both of you," blathered Lady D, "I've been so hoping that you might tell us a few tales about some of your more notable cases. And after that we can settle down to a few glasses of vintage port while we open our presents around the Christmas tree. Oh, won't that be jolly! You know, my dears, I have the feeling that this is going to be a Christmas that we really shan't forget in quite a while."
     "I think you may be right," said Chelsea. And (not for the first time) she found herself musing with admiration upon the remarkable personal qualities and reserves of fortitude which so uniquely characterise the distinguished members of the ancient and noble families of our wonderful British aristocracy.