A routine resumed as normal soon after Ann's arrival at Kilterbury House, with each guest assuming a household role, guiltily relishing the luxuries that were lavished upon them.

Miss Marple began, at once, knitting scarves and socks for Lord and Lady Kilterbury, assisting, from time to time, in the solving of Lord Kilterbury's crossword puzzle, especially when clues were to do with household items such as brands of laundry detergentor
/materials for clothes-pegs.

Mrs Fenn assisted in the kitchen, since the only full-timehelp hired by the Kilterburys was an unsophisticated maid named Esther, who couldn't pronounce the word 'soufflé', much less make one.

Aubrey acted somewhat grudgingly as Lord Harold's secretary, typing out what the Lord barked out to him, muttering all the while about the fellow's uncanny resemblance to a baked apple.

And Ann, much to everyone's surprise, did the dusting, cushion-airing, and assorted light housework, humming what sounded suspiciously like an operatic aria as she did so.

Miss Marple's room was next to Mrs Fenn's, so she entered the latter's room by accident as she was walking through the hallway.

She was about to turn away from it, when she noticed a letter written in red ink lying half-unfolded on a writing-desk. Quickly and gingerly, Miss Marple peered at its contents.

Dear sister Elizabeth, it read,

The times are of the most desperateurgency. Prove your allegiance to the Sisterhood, or be forever condemned from it. Bloodmust pour for blood to be linked. Remember this before it is too late. A task commanded is a task completed.

Sister Renée has already suffered.

Think wisely.

The letter was unsigned, but Miss Marple let out a sudden gasp of shock. What did the letter mean? Surely dear Mrs Fenn couldn't be involved in anything as peculiar as that Sisterhood, or whatever they had called it?

Hearing the muffled click of high-heels on a carpet, Miss Marple quickly folded the letter, and dropped to her knees.

'Jane? Is that you?' Mrs Fenn asked, standing in the doorway.

'Yes,' Jane replied, lifting herself up with a slight flash of pain in her arthritic hips. 'I'd lost my brooch, you see, as I was walking down the hall, and I thought it might have fallen - '

'Yes, yes,' Lizzie interrupted, impatiently. 'I'll give it to that idiot Esther to give to you if I find it.'

Lizzie glanced nervously at the letter on the table. 'You haven't been going through my things, I hope?' She asked, pleasantly.

'I wouldn't dream of it,' assured Miss Marple, slipping through the door as fast as she could go.

A tray of tea and scones dropped to the floor with a deafening crash.

'I'm terribly sorry, marm,' Esther cried, jumping like a frightened rabbit.

'Oh, it's quite alright, Esther,' Lady Kilterbury murmured. 'If you'll clean up this mess quite promptly, please.'

'Of course, Your Ladyship.'

Geraldine Kilterbury fluttered away, leaving a confused maid among shards of broken porcelain and crumbled scones.

She entered the Yellow Room, and examined the photograph that had been moved from the bureau to a small round table between a pair of chintzed armchairs by the fireplace.

Lady Kilterbury noticed with dismay a stain on the glass of the frame, a darkened smudge on Fiona's raised hands.

'Ann!' She called, walking upstairs.

Aubrey Fenn was exhausted. Lord Harold had been a pain in the neck - oh, if only he'd been a doctor, as his late unlamented adoptive fatherwould have liked for him to be, instead of parasitically draining money from his mother.

Well, it was no use dwelling on the past. He remembered, during the luncheon, a pretty young housekeeper, and escaped for a moment to the library, where, he felt sure, he would find her.

And, sure enough, she was there, sorting through domestic accounts in a large black notebook. She looked up as he entered.

'Ah, Mr Fenn,' she smiled pleasantly.

'It's a pleasure, Miss - '

'Hawthorne,' the girl replied. She was really a sliver of a thing, so willowy in an agreeable summer-dress. 'Catherine.'

'And you can call me Aubrey, as well. I say, would you fancy a dance?'

'A dance?' Miss Hawthorne sounded as though she had never heard the word before.

'Yes, I can put the gramophone on and we'll dance.'

'Oh, please!' The housekeeper cried, flinging her pen aside.

'Who's put on the gramophone?' Mrs Fenn asked, squarely dicing a carrot.

Esther looked out the window, for the ballroom was vertically opposite to the kitchen, divided by a small enclosure of low-hanging shrubs.

'It's Mr Fenn, marm,' Esther pronounced, saying Aubrey's family name as though it were a portion of a fish's anatomy. 'Dancing with Miss Hawthorne.'

Lizzie laughed heartily, throwing her auburn head back. 'The housekeeper, isn't she? A lovely girl all the same.'

Esther agreed, attempting to chop a potato, but piercingher finger instead.