Hyacinth Rolle

Hyacinth Rolle is 46 and has served the mansion for twenty-two years. Born in a fishing village in the south of the island, the daughter of a cook and a ship carpenter, she was the first in her family to learn to read, from the church teacher. She entered the house at twenty-four as a parlormaid and was promoted to housekeeper for being the only one who never lost a key or let a conversation slip through a door.

She sleeps in a simple room near the kitchen and wakes at five, before the first cat. She assigns the servants' chores, inspects the silverware, controls the pantry and accompanies the gardener when he prunes the bougainvillea. At night, after clearing the plates, she sits with a glass of rum and reading glasses on her nose, and counts the hours until the house is hers alone again. She doesn't like to be seen resting.

She is tall and firm, with a broad, serious face and watchful eyes. She ties her hair in a starched white kerchief, wears a gray housekeeper's dress with a white apron and carries at her waist a ring of keys that jingles before she appears. Her reading glasses hang from a cord around her neck. She speaks little, precisely, and rarely repeats a sentence.

She says the house had six guests that night, groupergrouper A large sea fish with firm white flesh, popular in tropical cooking. and brandy, and that they left at 11, before the rain closed the road. Mr. Pinder stayed over because his road flooded. About the footprints, she recalls red mud from a man's shoe going up the back stairs and someone scrubbing the rug upstairs: the house entrance is gravel, and red mud exists only on the dirt road, outside the gate. Someone who saw her recalls she left by the service gate at 11:30 p.m., with a bundle under her cape.

Hyacinth knows whoever has the key to every door is the first asked about an open door. It could be the discretion of a professional who looks after the house as she looks after herself. It could be someone who prefers silence to explaining a departure in the small hours. The detective will have to decide which.