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be a great pity to waste all of it,’ said Mrs Peden, making up her mind on the matter. ‘Not right, I mean…’
    â€˜Waste it?’ echoed Lisa, shocked. ‘You couldn’t do that, Matron. Not all that cooked ham … it’s home-cured!’
    â€˜Which wouldn’t freeze.’
    â€˜And then there’s the cold duck,’ said Lisa. ‘I did that myself special because Mrs Powell – God rest her poor soul – always liked my duck when it was served. She said so every time.’
    â€˜And that wouldn’t freeze either,’ said Muriel Peden decisively, ‘would it?’
    â€˜Freeze?’ Lisa’s starched apron rustled at the very word. ‘Why should it be put in the freezer, I’d like to know? They’ll be here any minute and if I know them they’ll be hungry.’
    Resisting the terrible temptation to say that freezing was probably what was going to happen to the late Mrs Powell – God rest her soul, indeed – Matron explained that there had been police at the funeral.
    â€˜Oh, that’s no problem, Matron,’ responded Lisa immediately. ‘I’ll give them something in the kitchen.’ She looked down at the charger of smoked salmon and its decoration of halves of lemon and subconsciously tightened her grip on it. ‘There’s plenty of that ham left and there’s some beer in the cooler. That’ll do for the police.’
    â€˜That’s not quite what I meant, Lisa,’ began Muriel Peden weakly.
    â€˜And if I know them, the residents will be quite peckish by now. Some of them have been up for hours getting ready, the darlings.’
    Mrs Peden, who held a less rosy view of her charges than did the middle-aged cook, nodded.
    â€˜And,’ went on Lisa, ‘Hazel says she had her hands ever so full with Captain Markyate this morning. He was in such a fret, poor old gentleman, about which tie to put on for the funeral. Ever so upset today, she said he was.’
    â€˜He chose the black,’ murmured Muriel Peden.
    â€˜Ah, but Hazel said she had quite a time with him because he couldn’t make up his mind.’
    â€˜He never can…’ said Matron.
    â€˜He thought perhaps he should wear the regimental one on account of Mrs Powell’s first husband having been in the Fearnshires.’
    Matron, an essentially kind woman, made a mental note to remark later to Captain Markyate on the suitability of black.
    â€˜Oh, and Mrs Carruthers has just rung to say she’s coming down for the luncheon after all.’ Lisa pursed her lips. ‘I don’t know what’s made her change her mind, I’m sure.’
    â€˜I can guess…’ began Muriel Peden warmly.
    â€˜Said to Hazel when she first came that she was going to stay up in her room until she got used to the place, she did, and that it would be a case of all her meals up there.’
    â€˜They all do to begin with,’ said Matron absently, her attention distracted by the sight of the first of her flock coming up the drive. She turned back to the door out of the kitchen. ‘You’d better serve that smoked salmon right away, Lisa. The Brigadier was going to see to opening the champagne and I expect he’s gone right ahead in spite of everything … it would be just like him.’
    *   *   *
    The dilemma experienced by Lionel and Julia Powell was purely a social and not an economic one. It centred on whether in the circumstances they should accept the hospitality of the Manor. This Gordian knot was cut for them by the unlikely combination of the police and their own two daughters.
    The former, in the person of Detective Inspector Sloan, had indicated a desire to have further converse in due course with the Powells, and their daughters had flatly refused to miss out on anything in the nature of a champagne luncheon.
    â€˜Nonsense, Daddy,’ said Amanda to their