"Thank you my lady. Please, please--sit down. This won't take long. Please." With apparent reluctance, Father Bright and my lady the Countess sat down in two chairs facing Lord Darcy. They paid little attention to what Master Sean O Lochlainn was doing; their eyes were on Lord Darcy. "Conducting an investigation of this sort is not an easy thing," he began carefully. "Most murder cases could be easily solved by your Chief Man-at-Arms. We find that well-trained county police, in by far the majority of cases, can solve the mystery easily--and in most cases there is very little mystery. But, by His Imperial Majesty's law, the Chief Man-at-Arms must call in a Duke's Investigator if the crime is insoluble or if it involves a member of the aristocracy. For that reason, you were perfectly correct to call His Highness the Duke as soon as murder had been discovered." He leaned back in his chair. "And it has been clear from the first that my lord the late Count was murdered." Father Bright started to say something, but Lord Darcy cut him off before he could speak. "By 'murder', Reverend Father, I mean that he did not die a natural death--by disease or heart trouble or accident or what-have-you. I should, perhaps, use the word 'homicide'. "Now the question we have been called upon to answer is simply this: Who was responsible for the homicide?" The priest and the countess remained silent, looking at Lord Darcy as though he were some sort of divinely inspired oracle. "As you know ... pardon me, my lady, if I am blunt ... the late Count was somewhat of a playboy. No. I will make that stronger. He was a satyr, a lecher; he was a man with a sexual obsession. "For such a man, if he indulges in his passions--which the late Count most certainly did--there is usually but one end. Unless he is a man who has a winsome personality--which he did not--there will be someone who will hate him enough to kill him. Such a man inevitably leaves behind him a trail of wronged women and wronged men. "One such person may kill him. "One such person did. "But we must find the person who did and determine the extent of his or her guilt. That is my purpose. "Now, as to the facts. We know that Edouard has a secret stairway which led directly to his suite. Actually, the secret was poorly kept. There were many women--common and noble--who knew of the existence of that stairway and knew how to enter it. If Edouard left the lower door unlocked, anyone could come up that stairway. He has another lock in the door of his bedroom, so only someone who was invited could come in, even if she ... or he ... could get into the stairway. He was protected. "Now here is what actually happened that night. I have evidence, by the way, and I have the confessions of both Laird and Lady Duncan. I will explain how I got those confessions in a moment.