The Skull Beneath the Skin by P. D. James Page B

wide sweep of sea. Beneath the bathroom window a wrought-iron fire escape led down to the rocks, from which, presumably, it was possible to reach the terrace. Even so, the escape route seemed to her precarious. In a high storm one would surely feel trapped between fire and sea.
    Cordelia had started to unpack when the communicating door between her room and the adjoining one opened and Clarissa Lisle appeared.
    “Oh, here you are. Come next door, will you? Tolly will see to your unpacking for you.”
    “Thank you, but I’d rather do my own.”
    Apart from the fact that the few clothes she had brought could be hung up in minutes and she preferred to do these things for herself, Cordelia had no intention of letting other eyes see the scene-of-crime kit. She had already noticed with relief that the bottom drawer of the cabinet had a key.
    She followed Clarissa into her bedroom. It was twice as large as her own and very different in style; here opulence andextravagance replaced lightness and simplicity. The room was dominated by the bed, a mahogany half-tester with canopy, cover and side curtains of crimson damask. The head and footboard were elaborately carved with cherubs and swags of flowers, the whole surmounted by a countess’s coronet. Cordelia wondered whether the original owner, thrusting his way upwards through the Victorian social hierarchy, had commissioned it to honour a particularly important guest. On either side of the bed was a small, bow-fronted chest and across its foot a carved and buttoned chaise longue. The dressing table was set between the two tall windows from which, between the looped curtains, Cordelia saw only an expanse of blue, untroubled sea. Two ponderous wardrobes covered the opposite wall. There were low chairs and a screen of Berlin woolwork before the marble fireplace in which a small pile of sticks had already been laid. Ambrose Gorringe’s chief guest was to have the luxury of a real fire. She wondered whether some housemaid would creep in in the early hours to light it, as had her Victorian counterpart when the long-dead countess stirred in her magnificent bed.
    The room was very untidy. Clothes, wraps, tissue paper and plastic bags were flung across the chaise longue and the bed, and the top of the dressing table was a jumble of bottles and jars. A woman was walking about, calmly and uncensoriously gathering up the clothes over her arm. Clarissa Lisle said: “This is my dresser, Miss Tolgarth. Tolly, meet Miss Cordelia Gray. She’s come to help with my correspondence. Just an experiment. She won’t be in anyone’s way. If she wants anything done, look after her, will you?”
    It wasn’t, thought Cordelia, an auspicious introduction. The woman neither smiled nor spoke, but Cordelia didn’t feel that the steady gaze which met her own held any resentment.It didn’t even hold curiosity. She was a heavily busted, rather sturdy woman with a face that looked older than her body, and with remarkably elegant legs. Their shape was enhanced by very fine stockings and high-heeled court shoes, an incongruous touch of vanity which emphasized the plainness of the high-necked black dress, its only ornament a gold cross on a chain. Her dark hair, parted in the middle and drawn back into a bun at the nape of the neck, was already streaked with grey and there were lines deep as clefts across the forehead and at the ends of the wide mouth. It was a strong, secretive face, not, Cordelia thought, the face of a woman willingly subservient.
    When she had disappeared into the bathroom, Clarissa said: “I suppose we’ll have to talk, but it can’t be now. Munter has set lunch in the dining room. It’s ridiculous on a day like this. We ought to be in the sun. I’ve told him that we shall eat on the terrace, but that means he’ll see that we don’t get it until one-thirty so we may as well make a quick tour of the castle. Is your room comfortable?”
    “Very, thank you.”
    “I suppose I’d better