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“I patted her hand. ‘There, there. We are doing all we can to resolve the situation.’ ”

‘The doctor gestured that the girl had had enough, and after thanking her for her time we took our leave.’

“We returned to the house and had lunch in the shade of the verandah, after which I retired to my room and slept in the heat of the day. Dinner that night was a formal occasion attended by a few local planters and their wives. The case, of course, was the main topic of conversation, and a dozen wild and extravagant theories were proposed to explain the state of affairs.”

“ ‘It is quite obvious to me,” said one dowager, the wife of a retired planter, ‘that the Atkinsons were facing a financial crisis and decided to abscond. They left like thieves in the night, and might at this very moment be enjoying the high life in Kuala Lumpur.’ ”

“ ‘Stuff and nonsense,’ someone responded. ‘All the boats from the island have been investigated. The brothers were upon none of them.’ ”

“But you do concede, do you not, that the brothers were capable of such duplicity?”

“An uneasy silence descended upon the gathered company. It is always unsettling to have suspicion pointed at erstwhile friends of hitherto impeccable reputation.”

“Presently the conversation turned to matters colonial, and I excused myself and retired to my room.”

“The following morning after breakfast I told Trevor that I wished to visit Trincomalee, and he arranged a trap and driver to transport me there.”

“Trincomalee is a small town with stone-built, colonial buildings dominating the main street, and ruder constructions comprising the outskirts. I stepped down from the trap on the main street, which follows the length of the ridge for some hundred yards. I decided that my first port of call should be the Colonial Police headquarters, an imposing building difficult to miss. After negotiating the interminable bureaucracy that maintains in such institutions, I was finally shown into the office of one Sergeant Mortimer, the officer in charge of the Atkinson investigation.”

“ ‘Mr Holmes,’ he said, rising from his desk to shake my hand. ‘I heard that you were on the case. I must confess that I should be most grateful for any light you might shed on this dreadful matter I don’t mind confessing that the affair has me baffled.’ He dealt me a penetrating look. ‘Might I ask how your investigations proceed?’ ”

“I told him that I had been on the island just over one day, and that thus far I had learnt little. ‘I would be pleased to hear your opinions on the case,’ I said. ‘There is a rumour doing the rounds that the Atkinsons’ estate was falling, and rather than face the wrath of the owners, the brothers fled the country.’ ”

“The Sergeant pursed his lips in contemplation. “Well, the estate was not doing that well – that much I can attest. But to be perfectly honest I could not see the brothers’ taking the cowards’ way out and absconding. To cover that possibility, I had men posted at all the ports for two weeks following their disappearance.’ ”

“Have you in the course of your investigations looked into their financial situation?”

“Of course. I made comprehensive enquiries at the local bank. They were overdrawn to the tune of some £1,000. The brothers … how can I put it? … the brothers were rather fond of an occasional flutter, shall we say?”

“By that I take it that they played, and lost, at cards?”

“ ‘So I have heard,’ Seageant Mortimer said. ‘But I enquired as to whether they had outstanding gambling debts, and so far as I could discover, such was not the case. The whole affair baffles me, Mr Holmes.’ ”

“Might they have been taken from the house and murdered by enemies?” I suggested.

“ ‘If they had enemies,’ the Sergeant said, ‘then I might entertain the notion. But I knew the brothers well, and aside from their predilection towards gambling, they were as moral a pair as could be found. They did not have a detractor in the world.’ ”

“We discussed the matter further, but I discovered no more details relevant to the affair,