Myra was clinging to me.

“It was awful … that horrible thing in the grass. It was waiting there for us … while we were in that place … it was there in the grass … waiting for us. I didn’t want to go there. I knew there was something dreadful about it. I hate these places. Diana, I want to go home.”

I knew that by “home” she did not mean Riebeeck. She wanted to be in Lakemere.

“You’ll feel better after a rest,” I said, calming her and myself at the same time. But I was not really thinking of her but of that boy who was the carver of the figures and who had died because of them.

Mrs. Prost was coming across the lawn.

“Oh, good afternoon, Miss Grey. Mrs. Lestrange, you look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”

“We’ve seen a snake,” I said.

“Nasty beggars.”

“It was close to us,” said Myra. “It was lurking in the grass. It hissed at us.”

“What sort of snake?”

“I don’t know. It was big. We just thought of getting away.”

“Quite right, too.”

She came with us into the house.

“A nice cup of tea’s what’s wanted now,” she said. “There’s none left. It’s come to a pretty pass when you can’t have a cup of tea when you want one.”

I wanted to get away. I desperately wanted to talk to Lilias.

“You ought to have a lie down, Mrs. Lestrange,” said Mrs. Prost. “You look all shaken up.”

“I think that’s a good idea, Myra.”

She agreed. So I said goodbye to her and prepared to leave. But as I came out of her room Mrs. Prost was waiting for me.

“There is something I ought to say to you, Miss Grey,” she said.

I hesitated. Was she going to apologise for what she had suggested on our last meeting?

“Come into my room,” she said.

So I went.

Mrs. Prost looked embarrassed and I began to feel uneasy, suddenly fearful of what she would reveal next.

She said: “I ought to have told you before. I couldn’t bring myself to. But I’ve got fond of you … and I couldn’t believe it and yet there it was.”

“Yes?” I said faintly.

“I … er … know who you really are.”

“What … do you mean?”

“You’re Miss Davina Glentyre.”

I gripped the sides of my chair. I felt sick and dizzy. That which I had never ceased to dread had come to pass.

She was looking at me steadily.

“How … did you know?” I asked.

She rose and went to a drawer—the same one from which, on that other occasion, she had taken the handkerchief. She brought out two newspaper cuttings and gave them to me. The headlines stared back at me.

“Guilty or Not Guilty? Miss Davina Glentyre in Court. Dean of Faculty Addresses Jury.”

I could not read the print. It danced before my eyes. All I could see was those damning headlines.

“How long have you known?” I asked, and I thought at once: what does it matter how long? She knows now.

“Oh … for some time.”

“How?”

“Well, it came about in a funny way. I was dusting Mr. Lestrange’s room and he came in. He was one to have a little chat … always the gentleman … never making you feel small like. I said, ‘I won’t be a minute, sir. I always like to do your room myself, to make sure everything’s all right.’ He said, ‘You’re very good, Mrs. Prost. I’ve just come in to get some papers. Don’t let me stop you.’ He went to his desk there and took out some papers, and as he did so these fluttered to the floor. I picked them up. I couldn’t help seeing them.”

“He had them in his drawer? Then …”

She nodded, and went on: “He said, ‘You’ve seen these cuttings now, Mrs. Prost. So I think you and I should have a little chat. Sit down.’ So I sat and he said: ‘You recognise the young lady?’ I said, ‘Yes, it’s her that calls herself Miss Grey.’ He said, ‘She was most unfortunate. I believe in her innocence. She was definitely not guilty of killing her father. You couldn’t believe that of her, could you, Mrs. Prost? Not a nice charming young lady like Miss Grey.’ I said: ‘No, I couldn’t, sir, but …’ Then he said: ‘She’s come out here to start a new life. I want to help her, Mrs. Prost. Will you, too?’ I said, ‘Well, I’m ready to do what you say, sir.’ ‘Take these papers,’ he said. ‘Put them away somewhere. Just hide them. I shouldn’t leave them about. The servants … you know … one of them might find them. Just take them and make sure no one sees them. I want you to help me rehabilitate Miss Grey. I like her. I like her very much. She is a young lady who deserves another chance.’ Then he gave me these cuttings.”

“Why did he give them to you? Why did he want you to keep them?”

“He didn’t say. And I thought I’d better, since he’d said.”

She took them from me and put them back in the drawer.

“Nobody comes in here,” she said, “unless I invite them. I do my own room. He’s quite right. They’re safer here with me than they are with him.”

“But why should you want to keep them?”

“I don’t know. I just feel I ought to … as he said. He might want them back. But what I wanted to say to you was that I knew. I suppose Mrs. Lestrange doesn’t?”

I shook my head.

“Well, it’s only the master and me.”

I was feeling ill. I just wanted to get away. First the shock of what I had discovered in the rondavel and now, immediately afterwards, this which had temporarily driven all else from my mind.

I said: “What are you going to do?”

“I’m not going to do anything. But I thought you’d understand me better if I told you I knew. I could see Mr. Lestrange was very fond of you. After all, he’s gone out of his way to help you, hasn’t he? Didn’t he let you know about the school? That’s why you’re here. Your secret’s safe with me. It’s some time since I knew. It was just before Mr. Lestrange left, of course. When he comes back I shall tell him I’ve told you. I shall say it was only right and proper that I should. Now look, don’t you worry. Mr. Lestrange doesn’t believe you did that terrible thing … and nor do I. Nice girls don’t go round murdering people … especially their own fathers. He took it himself. Men are like that … and him with a young wife. It’s easy to see … and that’s what they thought it was, didn’t they, because they let you off. So don’t you worry. I’ll go on calling you Miss Grey though you’re not. But you couldn’t very well use the other, could you?”

I wished that she would stop. I stood up.

I said: “I’m going now, Mrs. Prost.”

“All right. But don’t worry. I just thought that you ought to know that I know and I didn’t hold it against you. You just have to be careful, that’s all. I understand. I’m the sort of person who can put myself in other people’s place. I was young myself once. But you don’t want trouble.”

“If you don’t mind, I’ll go.”

“Get a nice rest. I know this has been a bit of a shock … but it’s safe with me. So don’t you fret.”

I hurried back to the schoolhouse. At the sight of me Lilias knew something was wrong.

“What news?” she said. “There’s been a lot of activity out there. Something’s going to break soon.”

“Lilias, I’ve had a terrible shock. Mrs. Prost …”

“Oh, not on again about that handkerchief!”

“No. She knows who I am. She has cuttings … newspaper cuttings of the case. She knows what happened in Edinburgh.”

“No! How?”

“Roger Lestrange had them. He gave them to her. So he knew … and now she knows. You see, there was no escape. You can’t run away from a thing like that.”

“Let’s get this straight. She told you, did she, that he gave her these cuttings?”

“She was dusting the room. He went to get something out of a drawer and they fell out. She picked them up for him … and saw.”

“Rather fortuitous, wasn’t it?”

“It sounded accidental, the way she told it. She rushed to pick them up. She couldn’t help seeing. There was a picture of me. He realised that she had seen. He said he believed in my innocence and wanted to help me.”

“So he kept the cuttings and dropped them at her feet?”

“He gave her the cuttings, he said, because he thought they might fall into the hands of one of the servants.”

“What’s wrong with a nice bit of fire?”

“I don’t know why they had to be kept. But she has them. She knows, Lilias. She says she believes in my innocence and wants to help me as he does. Oh, Lilias, I wish I had never seen Roger Lestrange. I wish I’d never come here.”

“I am wondering what this means. Why should he have let her see those cuttings? Why should he have given them to her … to keep? What does it mean?”

“I don’t know.”

“I don’t like it.”

“Oh … and something else has happened. I’d forgotten in all this. I’ve found out who did those carvings and put them in the Model House. It was Umgala … the little deaf-mute who was murdered.”

“What?”

“There is one of the rondavels which is empty. Someone died there, and you know how superstitious these people can be? It’s a little apart from the others and quite dilapidated. One of the boys warned us about going there and told us that Umgala used to go there often … and he was unlucky. He was murdered. The boy seemed to think it was because he had gone to that place. I went in and saw the wood shavings on the floor. I opened a drawer and there was one of the figures. The one I’d seen in the Model House.”

She was looking at me incredulously.

“And you think he was murdered because he did those figures and put them in that place?”

“Oh, Lilias, I’m beginning to think all sorts of things.”

“The figures were significant.”