Late, Late in the Evening

'But, surely, in a case of accidental death...'

'Accidental nothing, mater.'

'What on earth do you mean?' I felt myself beginning to tremble and my head to swim.

'Tassall thinks she's been attacked.'

'Not-oh, no! No!' I cried.

'Steady on, mater. We've got to face facts.'

'But if she's been attacked-and is dead-'

'That's it,' he said. 'Murder. Not very nice for us, is it? What on earth possessed her to leave the drive and go right down Lovers' Lane at such an hour? We shall never know, I suppose, but there it is. Sit down, mater. I'll get you a drop of brandy.'

Well, Mrs Bradley, the poor child's body was never brought to the house. The police, when they had made their preliminary investigation, had it taken to the mortuary in the town and as I had the girl's home address and telephone number (since it was I, as hostess, who had issued the invitations to the birthday party, although the original invitation had been sent to the girl's brother) I was able to get in touch with the relatives.

I do not think I closed my eyes that night or, rather, early morning, and later in the morning, of course, the police came again. They wanted the names and addresses of everybody who had been present at the party. They were very polite, but very inquisitive.

What kind of party? List of guests? Drinks? Drugs? Quarrels? Rivalries? Jealousies?

Really, Mrs Bradley, you cannot imagine!

It was not that kind of party, I assured them. The young people had been dancing and playing at charades and the girl in question, Merle Patterson, had said she was going out for a breath of air. Others did the same, but nobody else went further than the terrace.

Was I sure of that?

No, not to be able to swear to it, but so I had been informed.

Had the girl come with a male escort?

No. She had been one of a party of four, all old girls of my grand-daughter's previous school.

And so on and so forth. Everybody in the house was questioned, and this included the servants. Just as the inspector had released me from his mesmerism-for, indeed, I was quite bemused by this lengthy interrogation-my butler informed me that Mrs Landgrave from the village was asking to speak to me.

'Oh, send her away,' I said. 'She must come at some more convenient time. I can't see her now. Ask her to leave a message if it's anything to do with Mr Ward.'

Well, it was! Ward had not returned to his lodgings for the past two nights and Mrs Landgrave thought I ought to be told.

One dreadful detail has been brought to our notice. The police believe they have found the weapon the murderer used. A heavy spade had been thrown into the deepest part of the sheepwash and the nature of the poor girl's injuries-but, no! I cannot go on! We are living in a nightmare. I do hope you have not altered your plans in order to come here, but you will understand that for you to visit us at present would be a waste of your time.

* *

Doctor Tassall's Letter

By this time you will have heard our bad news. It never occurred to me, dear godfather, that when you encouraged me to study medicine I should be called as a witness at the inquest on a case of murder, but so it has proved. Mrs Kempson, into whose well-ordered, not to say snobbish and sheltered, existence some rain has now fallen for the first time, I fancy, since the death of her husband, let your name drop at some time during that ill-fated birthday party, but I did not let on that I knew you, as I feared she would not believe me. As I am hoping to become her grandson-in-law, I did not want to antagonise her more than I could help and I thought that for me to claim acquaintanceship, not to say godsonship, with so eminent a personage as yourself might cause her to think me even more of a mountebank than she does at present. Besides, she would be bound to find out (unless you will reinstate me in your good graces) that you have banned me from your house since I told you I had broken with my little blackbird, Merle, and wanted to marry Amabel Kempson-Conyers.

First I ought to explain about Amabel, and this is where I throw myself, dear godfather, on your mercy. She is a beautiful young hussy whom I encountered under romantic circumstances a year ago in Paris, where I was celebrating the lucky fluke which enabled me, at the end of my course, to put the magic letters M.B. after my name.

She and another rash child were playing hooky from their finishing school one evening when they were accosted by a couple of amorous French youths of undesirable type. I contrived to break up the little party by claiming to be Amabel's brother and suggesting that I should whistle for the gendarmes if the boys did not abandon their obvious intentions. One of them pulled a knife, so I laid him out, took the girls back to their home from home, expressed the hope that both would receive a sound spanking from the dragon-in-charge and handed them over to the concierge with a large bribe to persuade her not to give them away.

That, I supposed, would be the end of it, but this was not to be. No, I'll be honest, godfather. I hoped it wouldn't be the end of it, so, having extracted from the young delinquents on the way home the information that they were in the first weeks of their year at finishing-school, I began to haunt the Sights of Paris in the hope of catching up with Amabel again.

It came off in the Louvre. Half-a-dozen young beazels, all demureness and devilment, were being towed around the galleries by a couple of grim, black-clad females of official aspect and, directly she spotted me, Amabel gave a slight squeal, grabbed one of the females, chattered away in French, broke ranks and, seizing my hands, kissed me fervently on both cheeks, rushed me up to the rest of the gang and introduced me as her brother(!).

After that, it was all gas and gaiters-nothing to it. I wrote her a prim, brotherly letter in case their mail was censored, received a reply, and that was the beginning of the end; at least, I hope so, for I intend to marry her. She needs a firm hand and I am the man to supply it. Unfortunately, if I make known (at this stage) my intentions, honourable though they are, there is the chance that old Mrs Kempson will persuade the parents to make Amabel a ward of court and rob me, no doubt, of access to her, unless I fancy a spell in chokey which, quite frankly, dear godfather, I most emphatically do not.

Well, to our muttons. As you know, I returned from Paris to take up a post as assistant and general dogsbody to old Doctor Faustus (I call him that, because you never saw anything like his dispensary except in bad dreams) but, naturally, I kept in touch with Amabel and she with me. I knew, therefore, the date of her return to England and that she proposed to make a lengthy stay at Hill House, so, to disclose a truth which you will not need to be told, I only took the Faustus job to be near her in the village where her ancestral hall dominates the hilltop.

We managed to meet two or three times in London after she first got back, and then I received an invitation to the birthday party. It was from old Mrs Kempson herself, and I don't know how Amabel wangled it. However, I put on a clean shirt and showed up.

On the morning of the party there was a charity rag led by some of the University Medical School fellows. Apparently they called at the Big House and then nothing would satisfy Amabel but to borrow or buy the prehistoric-animal costumes in which they appeared. She got a message to me at the surgery by way of one of her grandmother's servants, so as soon as I was free I engaged the lads on the blower and arranged for a wagonette of obsolete vintage to deliver the costumes to the manor. From what I heard later, young Lionel, Amabel's kid brother, watched the costumes being unloaded and immediately claimed one for himself. More about that later.

Meanwhile, I suppose you wouldn't care to come along and hear me give my evidence, such as it is, to the coroner? I feel I shall do you credit in the witness box, although the thunder, I suspect, will be stolen by the police doctor, who will be in the enviable position of one to whom the city mortuary is his washpot, not to mention that over the police-station hath he cast out his shoe.

Incidentally, although she's probably too stiff-necked to say so, I believe Mrs Kempson could do with a bit of support from you. She isn't very young and the knowledge that a guest at her party has been slugged and killed in the immediate neighbourhood of her ancestral home has given her more than somewhat of a jolt. Apart from that, your presence (especially if you would be willing to drop a word in my favour) would give me enormous pleasure.

* * *

Amabel Kempson-Conyers' Letter

Oh, Maisy, how I wish it had never occurred to me to buy those wretched lizard-costume things from the boys at the medical school! And how lucky you are that Anthony insisted on taking you home so early. I suppose you went to his flat in his car and whooped it up a bit. Not that I'm jealous, darling. Your Amabel has her own bit of cake stashed away and is perfectly content with it.

Still, never mind that. No doubt our troubles will be a nine days' wonder in the papers, but I'd like to give you my version because, maybe, to write it down will clear my head in case I'm called upon to give evidence at the inquest, as I think I'm bound to be. I'm sure the whole thing is connected with those prehistoric things. Do you think there's a curse on them or something?

Anyway, this is what has happened. You remember how we shared out the costumes, I expect? They-that's to say, the rag students-were limited in their ideas because each of them had to have an outfit which only involved two legs, unless anybody was willing either to have a partner, like a pantomime horse, or else go about on all fours which, for dashing about the town and village collecting for charity, simply was not feasible.

So, as I say, the restrictions. Not everybody got a costume, because the students could only supply fourteen costumes altogether. Each one was labelled as to what it was supposed to be. Well, owing to the limitations of only needing the two-legged types of pre-historic monsters, each costume was duplicated and there were only the fourteen altogether, of which my wretched little brother Lionel bagged one as soon as they were unpacked and refused to give it back. He bore it off, cavorted about in it until, mercifully, he was sent to bed, and we did not see it downstairs again until after two o'clock in the morning, after you and Anthony had sneaked off without saying goodbye.

My first idea had been to pair off people as male and female of the same species, but when I looked at the costumes I saw that this was impossible because some of the things were too heavy and too bulky for us poor females to manage, so, in the event, as you may or may not recollect, we had two men as Tyrannosaurus, two, rather similar, as Tarbosaurus and two as Corythosaurus, a terribly silly-looking creature with a huge duckbill and a sort of helmet on its head. We gave those to Chris and Billy, if you remember, so that they could clown a bit, which I knew they would do, anyway. It makes them a bit tiresome at times, but, being so beetle-brained, I suppose they have to give some scope to their ego, although they can be fatiguing. I specially think so after my rather sophisticated year in Paris, meeting French boys, who are ardent without being silly and have beautiful manners so long as you don't give them too much encouragement, but, on the whole, I would rather trust Chris and Billy, in spite of their lunatic antics. Of course we didn't get much chance of encouraging the French boys, as we were very well chaperoned-talk about Spanish duennas!-but there's always a way.

Oh, well, that's not what I'm writing about. First of all I offered Merle (the gate-crasher!) a prehistoric bird-thing called Dimorphodon-did I tell you I only know the names because they were on the costumes? It's a pterosaur. One thing this business has done is improve my education, but that's the best anyone can say about it, as you'll know when you read the papers.

Anyway, Dimorphodon has great, leather-looking wings and Merle said the costume would make her look like a bat out of hell, for it has the most repulsive head half as long as its body and hideous, overlapping teeth. She made such a fuss that I gave it-the two of them, rather-to Pippa and Jennifer, who were quite pleased, actually. It was like Merle's cheek to beef about what she was offered, anyway.

You and I had Saltoposuchas, which I thought, with all that iridescent blue and green colouring and the splashes of red-brown, was quite the prettiest costume of the lot, and Polly and Sophie had Diatryma, which reminded me of the sort of ostrich you could only see in a nightmare. Polly said it was indecent because they had to straddle their legs so much that they were reduced (I must admit) to a rather obscene waddling when they had to move about.

Anyway, as my little brother had seized one of the two iguanodon costumes, I thought Merle could have the other. She wasn't very gracious about that, either, and did not join in the charades. It seemed she had a chip on her shoulder all evening, I thought, knowing that it was her brother I'd invited, but the wretch sent her instead. I'd have had the charades before the dancing, so that people could take the costumes off and have a long, cool drink (I didn't think much of my grandmother's claret-cup, did you?) before beginning the dancing, but there was a reason for the reversal. The consequence was that when people had danced and then were told to dress up, I don't think the majority were any too keen. The costumes were hot and some of them were heavy and the charades we could do in them were so very limited that I think we were all glad when both sides had done one little sketch and we could all opt out of doing another.

At this point, of course, the thing would have been to get rid of the costumes, settle for supper and a bit of relaxation and then go on with the dancing. Well, Maisy, this is where I blame myself. I wanted a special memento of my birthday, so I'd arranged for a professional photographer (at my grandmother's expense, I'm afraid) to come at about eleven and photograph the lot of us in our fancy dress and then, later on, with us in our party frocks. He was also to take family groups, groups of friends, me with my presents, and so on. That's why I put the dancing first. I couldn't have the photographer come earlier because he had an engagement to take photographs at a banquet in the town.

So at the end of the charades people were still hanging about in those wretched costumes waiting for the photographer and going out on to the terrace to cool off and that's when Merle did her disappearing act. She announced that she was going to stroll a little way down the drive. I said, 'Not at this time of night?' She said, 'Why not? I shan't meet anybody, and if I did I should only scare them into a decline, dressed like this. You're a nuisance to make us keep the things on.'

She was always a bit of an ass, as you know from our schooldays, and I believe she half-hoped she would meet somebody, but whether by accident (which was what she indicated) or by design (which is what I suspect) I suppose we shall never know unless something comes out at the inquest. Anyway, she was in a peculiar mood all along and never turned up for the photographs at all, but, actually, neither did the photographer!

Well, I don't want to run her down, but, in spite of what the papers will say, she was a bitch and a schemer, as well as being an ass. Still, absit invidia and all that.

You know what I'm trying to tell you, don't you, Maisy? She did meet someone and whoever it was must have given her a fearful bashing. When daddy and Nigel and my angel doctor-boy went out to look for her, she was dead. The iguanadon head she'd been wearing was no thicker on top than a cotton skull-cap and the police think she was bashed on the head first and then the costume was dragged off her, because they found it ripped to bits and scattered around the body.

Lionel's Letter

These hols, have been pretty dim up to now, Monkey, but they have taken a turn for the better and that's why I'm writting except to say arent you glad we are haveing Mr Peters next term instead of old Scruffy although Mr Peters keeps a slipper hooked on to a nail at the side of the blackbord by the duster Tim Banks calls it Mr Peters secret weppon but I don't think Peters is vishous do you and coaches Rugger jolly well I hope I get into the third XV bet I do so nerts to Goldberg who fancys himself at scrum half because he is Cohens cozzen and the Jews always stick together wish my family did grandma is beastly strict although really quite all right but my parents are mostly abroad and I don't see all that much of them although regular pocket-money which is the main thing I serpose.

New para as old Scruffy would say what a mean old ass still never mind him I must tell you about our murder they think I don't know but you can get to know everything if you sneek along to the kitchen door and lissen to the cook and the others in there.

New para well, my cocky sister had a party on her birthday with some jolly good costumes she wangled her friend he's a doctor and not bad has played for the Babas though only once he got her the costumes and I collared one it was an iguanadon I know how you spell it because it is labled.

New para well there was this party and this girl was the other iguanadon only Dr Tassel what a name I bet they ragged him at school calls it something else which I cant spell but it's still an iguanadon like an eider or a widgen or a mallard is still a duck if you see what I mean anyway this girl went out late at night to get cooled off I bet they had all been drinking a lot of shampane and sherry and stuff like that and she got murdered they will not let me go to the inquest so I have disided to become a detective and help the police find the murderer I bet they can do with some help don't you wish you were here there are two village kids I play with one is a girl but quite sensible so I may let them come in on the murder they very desently let me come in on their secret cottage its filthy but very interesting so I may let them be my asisternts in the murder as three would be better than one if the murderer turns nasty and they can both box.

New para Ive got to give back the costume but I don't care much because it would be too awkward to pack to take home and Amabel says it makes her feel sick to think its the same as the girl had on when she was murdered they won't let me see the body its in the mortchery which I think is like an ice-box to keep bodys fresh till the coroner has seen them I wouldnt mind being a coroner and seeing all the bodys but I'd rather be a detective because thats where the action is and you look for cloos and measure footprints and pick up cigarette ends not to smoke but to notiss the brand and deduce things like whether a man is left-handed or limps and all that see you on the 23rd bring another of those jam sponges I think I can sneek too tins of sardeens Tim Banks can come in with us if he brings anything desent baked beans would do but a tin of cooked ham would be better.

P.S. They have just told me we're all going home the police have got our address so will let us go how rotten I would much rather stay here.

* * *

A Godfather's Letter

I would be shocked and horrified by the flippant tone of your recent communication, my dear boy, if I did not realise that you have been through a trying and a traumatic experience which must have left you disturbed and perhaps conscience-stricken over the death of that poor young girl whom (let us not mince matters) you jilted.

However, some parts of your letter appear to require an answer, so I will state at once that I have no intention of intruding on Mrs Kempson. There is nothing I can do to help her through this very difficult and harassing time. Neither shall I attend the inquest on poor little Merle Patterson to hear you give your contribution to the evidence.

As for Amabel Kempson-Conyers, I regard her as a spoilt brat and I doubt very much whether you have the strength of character to cope with her. I send you my regards, although I doubt whether you deserve them. Come and see me at Christmas, as usual.

CHAPTER TEN

THE HERMIT'S COTTAGE

Kenneth and I decided, I remember, that our real adventures began when Aunt Kirstie told us that we need not go to the village school on Monday, as it was uncertain how long our mother would remain in hospital and so we might be sent for at any moment to return home. We endorsed this point of view.

'There wouldn't be much sense in our signing on just for a week, perhaps,' said Kenneth. 'Only muck up the teacher's register.'

'What happens if the attendance officer comes round?' I remember asking. In our London school the attendance officer was a familiar figure, a short, thick-set, po-faced young man in a blue serge suit and a burberry who looked at the registers and took down the names and addresses of absentees. Then he went to their homes to find out whether they were ill or whether they were playing the wag or whether, if girls, they were being kept away from school to help with the housework, or whether, if boys, they had no boots or were running errands for tradesmen. In our day the attendance officer was a feared and detested figure in all the poorer parts of the town.

'Attendance officer? Who's he?' Uncle Arthur enquired. 'Only body likely to enquire about you is the governess, because they're paid according to numbers on roll.'

Monday passed pleasantly. The weather was fine, we were free, we found three golf-balls on that part of The Marsh which was the University golf-course, we paddled, fished for tiddlers, picked and ate grandfather's fruit and paid a visit to the hermit's stinking cottage to look at Mr Ward's filled-in hole.

The one place we felt we must not visit was the sheepwash. We had been put on our honour not to go near it, so when Our Ern and a bigger boy suggested a visit to it, we said we were compelled to refuse.

'Aw, come on, then!' they said.

'Can't. We've promised not to.'

'Aw, come on!'

'No, not this time.'

'Dare ee!'

'No good. No dare taken.'

'Checken-'earted, then!'

'If you say that again,' said Kenneth, 'the next time we go bathing down by Long Bridges I shall drown you.'

Long Bridges was about two miles from the village. It was a back-water of the river around part of which the town council had put corrugated iron fencing and had built dressing-sheds. There were stone steps slippery with weed leading down to the water. As a treat we were allowed to go there in charge of a village girl who came in once a week to help Aunt Kirstie turn out Mr Ward's rooms and who received an extra sixpence for taking us to the bathing-place.

Unlike Lionel at his private school, we were compelled in so public a place to wear bathing costumes. These had been fabricated for us by Aunt Kirstie out of one of her voluminous red flannel petticoats.

'Ought to be blue stockinette,' said Uncle Arthur, and how heartily we agreed with him!

'Flannel will keep them warm in the water,' said Aunt Kirstie. 'I don't want them catching their deaths.'

Kenneth's threat to drown Our Ern was met by a far more formidable counter-threat.

'Ef ee don't come down the sheepwash Oi'll tell Gov'ness you ent attenden school. Your auntie and uncle'll go to preson ef you ent attenden school.'

So we forfeited our honour and went along to the sheepwash, deeming it better to feel besmirched than to risk putting Uncle Arthur and Aunt Kirstie in gaol.

''Tes 'ereabouts as her bled,' said Our Ern ghoulishly. We searched diligently for bloodstains, but did not find any.

'Anyways, they've got 'em as done et,' Our Ern went on.

'Garn!' said the big boy. They never!'

'Tell ee they 'ave, then. They've tooken that geppo what go weth Old Sukie. Our Sarah said so. Strong as a loyon he be, and took four p'licemen to get hem ento the Black Maria.'

'Oi warnts moi tea,' said the boy, abandoning the argument. On the way back we saw Uncle Arthur coming home from work across The Marsh. He had whitewash on his clothes and carried his bag of tools. We waited for him. Kenneth took the bag and I held on to Uncle Arthur's arm.

'No good you canoodling round me,' he said, not attempting, however, to disengage himself. 'You been down the sheepwash, I'll lay.'

'We couldn't help it,' I said, 'and we're going to tell Aunt Kirstie. Is it true the police have arrested one of the gypsies? Is it Old Sukie's man?'

'So I heard tell.'

'But they can't do that,' said Kenneth. The murder happened at night, didn't it?'

'What do you know about it?'

'It's all over the village. Everybody knows. The thing is, you see, the gypsy couldn't have done it.'

'Oh?' We crossed the plank bridge. I had been the one to open the iron gate. I stayed to close it. Kenneth, who had been tagging along behind with the bag of tools, caught up with Uncle Arthur.

'Of course he couldn't,' he said. 'Don't you remember? He was at the fair. Why should they think he did it? Didn't he tell them where he was? And didn't Sukie back him up? She was there, too, you know. She tried to fight those beasts who set on him.'

'Oh, nobody don't pay no attention to what them gyppos says,' said Uncle Arthur. 'Liars and thieves, every man jack of 'em.'

'But if the police think he's a murderer they might hang him,' I said. (Hanging was then the punishment for murder.)

'Good riddance to bad rubbish,' said Uncle Arthur. 'Ten to one, if it wasn't him it was another of 'em. They're all alike.' But we could not leave it at that. We talked matters over and then decided to go next day to see Mrs Kempson. This time we went to the front door. When the butler opened it and saw us, he said,

'Master Lionel has gone home.'

'We know,' said Kenneth. 'Miss Margaret and Mr Kenneth Clifton, to see Mrs Kempson on business.' He handed the butler his cap. 'It's to do with the murder,' he said. The butler stood aside and let us in.

'Very good, sir,' he said ironically. 'But may I point out that it is customary for gentlemen to 'and me their 'ats after they have crossed the threshold? This way, if you please.'

He did not take us up the splendid staircase, but led the way to a small, pretty little room on the ground floor.

'Miss Margaret Clifton, Mr Kenneth Clifton,' he announced. It ought to have sounded all right and, in a way, it did sound all right, but we knew he was laughing at us.

'Oh, I'm afraid Lionel has gone home,' said Mrs Kempson. Seated in the room with her was a small, thin lady, not so old as Mrs Kempson. She had black hair and black eyes and her hands and face looked rather yellow. She was so much like a witch that I ought to have been alarmed, but (as Kenneth said later) somehow you knew she was all right.

I thought it was about time that I said something. So far, I had left all the talking to Kenneth.

'We know Lionel has gone home. He told us,' I said. 'We've come about the murder.'

'Good gracious me! What do you children know about that?'

'We know the gypsy didn't do it.'

'How can you know anything of the sort?' But, as she asked the question, she turned to the black-haired lady. 'I think perhaps I had better leave this to you, Mrs Bradley. I don't know what these children are talking about,' she said.

'Interesting,' said Mrs Bradley. 'Oh, are you leaving us?'

'Yes, I have letters to write.' Somewhat to our relief, Mrs Kempson got up to go. She told us to sit down and then she left us with the black-haired witch. She walked out very slowly, as though she was weak and ill.

'The inquest is tomorrow,' said Mrs Bradley, fixing her sharp eyes on us. 'This will be the preliminary enquiry, you know, when the body is formally identified and the medical evidence taken, so you have come at a very good time. Forgive me if it is an impertinent question, but are not the school holidays over?'

'We don't really belong here,' said Kenneth. 'We expect to go back to London any day now.'

'I see. And what did you want to tell Mrs Kempson?'

'It wasn't so much Mrs Kempson,' I explained. 'It's just that we had to tell somebody important, and she's the only important person we know except our grandfather, and I don't think he'd be interested.'

'Oh, and why is that?'

'He doesn't like gypsies. He says they raid his chicken-run and I think perhaps they do.'

'I see. Suppose you begin at the beginning. I feel that your story will be fraught with interest.'

I wondered whether she also was laughing at us. In what turned out to be a long acquaintance with her, for we were among the first to congratulate her when, many years later, she was made a D.B.E. and had to be addressed (rather to our embarrassment) as Dame Beatrice, we never really did know when she was laughing at us, but she was so good to us-helping us to get good jobs and rooting for Kenneth to get him into Parliament later on-that we did not mind even if she was indulging her unpredictable sense of humour at our expense, for it was puzzling but never hurtful.

Anyway, before we left Mrs Kempson's house that day we had laid all before her and she had promised to see that Sukie's man got justice. I do not know, even to this day, what gave us such complete confidence in her, but she came to see Uncle Arthur and he agreed to give Bellamy Smith a complete alibi, as was only just and right.

* * *

'Well,' said Kenneth, when we were on our way back to Aunt Kirstie's. 'I think we can depend on her, don't you? She seems a very reliable sort of person. She talked to us as if we were grown-up and she didn't ask any silly questions.'

'There's an awful lot of the day left. What shall we do after dinner?' I asked.

'I know what I want to do, but I don't know whether you'll agree, and it's not a job I want to tackle on my own.'

'You mean the hermit's cottage, don't you? I don't want to go there again.'

'I thought you wouldn't, but remember that filled-in hole!'

'What about it?'

'I rather think,' said Kenneth, kicking a stone in front of him as we walked down the hill, 'I rather think Mr Ward may have buried something there, you know.'

'Why? What makes you think so?' I no longer thought of buried treasure. I had murder in mind and I was frightened.

'Well, why should he dig a hole like that and then fill it in again if he wasn't burying something?' said Kenneth. 'He'd never do all that work for nothing. Nobody would.'

'He might if he was a madman.'

'They think a madman murdered that girl, and we think Mr Ward is a bit mad. Tell you what! Suppose there's some important clue to him being the murderer and he's buried it in that cottage so the police won't find it? Wouldn't it be a score if we dug it up and it turned out to be just the thing the police were looking for? It could be, you know, because I don't suppose they realise Mr Ward used to go to the cottage and dig up the floor.'

Aunt Kirstie hardly ever asked what we had been doing with ourselves during the morning or what we were going to do after dinner and she did not do so on this occasion. We slipped out while she was doing the washing-up and went down to the duckpond. Grandfather, we knew, would be settling down for his afternoon nap and Aunt Lally would be doing her own washing-up, so the coast was clear. All the same, we went a long way round to get to the gap we had made in the hermit's iron railings. We took cover among raspberry canes and currant bushes after we had skirted the duckpond, then we went behind the pigsties and, having reached old Polly's stable, we took cover behind that and waited and listened. I still did not want to go to the cottage, but I was afraid of Kenneth's going alone.

There was nobody about, so we made for the gap in the fence and squeezed through. Unless somebody looked over the side wall which had glass on top to keep children from climbing in, we knew we could not be spotted, for the people who lived next door had put up a very high fence between them and the hermit's untidy garden. We tip-toed up what was left of the garden path, listened at the back doorway and then went in through the kitchen to the front room.

There was the filled-in hole and near it lay Mr Ward's pickaxe. It was then that Kenneth said, 'Well, that's no use to us. We ought to have brought a spade.'

'That wouldn't be much use, either,' I said. 'We tried Uncle Arthur's once, don't you remember? We couldn't do much with it, even in his garden. I vote we chuck this and find something else to do.'

'And leave the treasure, or maybe the clue to the murder?'

'Well, what's the use? We can't get it on our own. Besides...'

'Besides what?'

'We might find there wasn't any treasure or any clue and then we, or whoever helped us, would have had all the sweat for nothing.' (I did not express my real fear of what we might find.)

'Oh, rot! If Mr Ward filled in the hole, he must have buried something. Stands to reason.'

'Not if he's mad it doesn't,' I said again.

'You said "whoever helped us". I've thought of somebody who would.'

'They're all in school, and, anyway, it wouldn't be our secret any longer.'

'Poachy Ling isn't in school.'

'But he's barmy.'

'All the better. He won't know what it's all about, and he's as strong as a horse. He's always hanging about and trying to join in things. He'd come like a shot if we asked him.'

'He gibbers and dribbles. I'm scared of him.'

'He's all right. Just a bit simple, Uncle Arthur says. That's why he doesn't go to proper work. Does odd jobs here and there and helps his mother with her washing. Let's go and see if he's hanging about anywhere.'

Poachy Ling was usually to be found hanging about. He was called Poachy not because he had a talent for snaring rabbits or taking pheasants, but because it was the nearest he ever got to pronouncing his own name, which was Percy. He was known to be harmless, but his moppings and mowings always made me uneasy and anxious to get away from him. In other words he was the village idiot, but an older brother protected him and Our Sarah would not permit any of her gang to tease him when his brother was at work. Neither, however, would she have him as a member of her group, although he was always, in a hopeful spirit, trying to become a camp-follower. I suppose he must have had the mentality of a retarded child of four. I believe his age in years was twenty-three.

'Even if we had Poachy we still haven't got a spade,' I said.

'There's Uncle Arthur's in the shed. You go and get that, and I'll go and find Poachy.'

'Uncle Arthur might be waxy.'

'Not he. He let us dig in the garden with it.'

Digging in Uncle Arthur's garden and digging up the floor of the hermit's filthy hovel seemed to my mind two very different things, but I did not say so. I sneaked back to Aunt Kirstie's while Kenneth went out by the front door of the cottage. Luckily the shed was at the bottom of the garden next to the earth closet, so I did not need to go near the house. I secured the heavier of Uncle Arthur's two spades, added the iron crowbar we had borrowed when we forced the palings apart, and returned to the garden of the cottage.

I waited there for what seemed a very long time before Kenneth re-appeared. He came back through the cottage and found me poking about among the bushes with the crowbar.

'What are you doing?' he asked.

'Nothing. I've found something, though. Show you later. Where's Poachy?'

'In the road. Come and help me make him come in.' He picked up the spade, I followed with the crowbar and we dumped them on top of the filled-in hole. Poachy was writhing about and talking to himself. I took one arm and Kenneth took the other and we persuaded him into the cottage. Kenneth showed him the spade, handed it to him and indicated the place where we wanted him to dig. I picked up the crowbar and retreated towards the kitchen. I think I had some vague idea of protecting Kenneth in case Poachy turned nasty-not that he ever did.

Apparently the suggestion conveyed by the spade and the newly tramped-down earth appealed to something in the idiot's memory. He fell into a series of weird contortions, grinned and slobbered, picked up the spade and fell to work. Soon earth and stones were flying in all directions, so Kenneth and I took cover in the kitchen doorway, peeping out every now and again to see how he was getting on.

'What were you poking in the bushes for?' Kenneth asked, while Poachy delved and heaved. 'You said you found something. What?'

'A boot,' I said, 'elastic-sided. I believe it's one of Mr Ward's.'

CHAPTER ELEVEN

OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

With no desire or intention of being facetious, for, in the circumstances we are about to describe, such an attitude on the part of this newspaper would be in the worst possible taste, we have to admit that, if the horror films want it, Hill village has it. Figure to yourself, as the French are supposed to say, two murders, each as bizarre as the other, in a village of under three hundred inhabitants and within a space of less than three weeks! Does your mind boggle? Not half as much as the mind of the local inspector of police, we dare swear!

Our readers will remember-indeed, who, knowing the facts, could ever forget?-the death of Miss Merle Patterson, a stranger from London who was found brutally done to death at the end of a grassy thoroughfare known locally as Lovers' Lane.

Miss Patterson, it will be recalled, had strayed away from a party held at Hill Manor House, just outside the now notorious and fateful village of Hill, and was found battered and bathed in blood at round about three o'clock in the morning.

Her cruel death was and remains a mystery. It is clear that Hill village must house an undetected homicidal maniac. He has now claimed another victim in the person of a quiet, inoffensive, elderly man said to have been related to the chatelaine of Hill Manor, Mrs Emilia Kempson, the Great Lady of the village and the hostess at what has become known as the fateful birthday party. The facts relating to this second apparently motiveless murder are obscure. For two nights Mr Ward had not slept in his bed or returned to his lodgings for his supper. Interviewed by us, his landlady, Mrs Christine (Kirstie) Landgrave, told us:

'Mr Ward was not the sort to make enemies. Whoever killed him must be a madman. I do not know any more about Mr Ward than what Mrs Kempson told me, which was that he had lived many years in Canada and the States and had come back to England to find work, but was too old, she thought, to fend for himself and as he was a distant relative-that is how she described him-she was prepared to pay me to look after him and would provide him with his bit of spending money.

'That is all I know about Mr Ward. He was not one to talk about himself. If you got as much as a good morning from him it was quite a surprise. I had a terrible shock when I heard he was dead, especially when I heard where he was buried. I did not want to go to the mortuary, but my husband lost half a day's work to come with me and Mrs Kempson made that up to us, seeing that, if we had not gone, it would have had to be her, I suppose.

'Yes, I have my sister's children staying with me. No, I won't let you talk to them. They can't tell you anything you don't know, and the police have questioned them already and more than once. It is true they were at the cottage where the body was found. No, I don't suppose you can get much sense out of poor Poachy, but I won't allow Maggie and Ken to be questioned again and I shall tell the police if you try. No, I don't want your money. The children knew there had been a hole dug in the floor of that cottage, though why they wanted to go and play in such a dirty, tumbledown old place, when they'd got so many other places to play in, I don't know, but that's children, isn't it?

'No, I have never seen the young lady that was murdered down at the sheepwash, but it must have been the same man as killed Mr Ward, mustn't it? It stands to reason. You couldn't have two murderers in a village this size.

'Oh, yes, the children are going home as soon as their father can come down here to fetch them. No, they haven't had a shock. They never stayed to see Poachy actually dig up the body, you see. They come running back as soon as they saw a bit of Mr Ward's suit and one of his hands. He had a signet ring with a big stone in it and you couldn't mistake his clothes. The coat was a sort of a dirty mustard colour. Nobody else in the village has one like it, and the children recognised that and they found one of his boots in the garden.'

So much for Mrs Landgrave. We respected her wishes concerning the children, but we have made other enquiries among the inhabitants of Hill, although the veil of mystery surrounding the two apparently motiveless murders seems to be impenetrable.

We may add that although they do not admit outright to holding a council of despair-we put it like that because we hear that Scotland Yard will have to be involved sooner or later and we would suggest that preferably it ought to be sooner-there is no doubt that at present the local police are completely baffled.

This appears to be a classic case of a murderer whose lust for killing may be disguised under an exterior as bland and innocent as yours or mine, dear reader. He may be a Neill Cream or a Jack the Ripper, planning already where he will strike again. That possibility cannot be ruled out. This maniac must be apprehended and that right speedily.

The police are attempting to find some connexion between the two deaths, but there appear to be very few points of resemblance. Consider the known facts. Here we tabulate them side by side for purposes of comparison.

1. A girl aged twenty.

1. A man of middle age.

2. Gently nurtured.

2. Possibly a rough diamond.

3. A loving family and plenty of friends.

3. One known relative sends him to lodge with strangers and never sees him again, not even after his death. (We do not intend any criticism. There must have been good reasons.

4. Murdered after leaving a birthday party, ostensibly to go out for a breath of air.

4. Murdered after having been absent from his lodgings for no known reason.

5. Wearing fancy dress which could have acted as a disguise.

5. Wearing clothes which were readily identifiable by anyone in the village.

6. Came from London and knew nobody in the village except the persons present at the party.

6. Came from America, but known by sight to everybody in the village.

7. Sociable and lively.

7. Unsociable and non-communicative.

8. Body left by sheepwash although probably killed nearer Hill House.

8. Body buried in hole he had dug, probably from boredom with his uneventful existence.

9. Head smashed in. Fancy dress torn off.

9. Head smashed in. Boots taken off.

10. Found by search-party sent to look for her.

10. Found by accident.

11. Gypsies suspected but cleared.

11. No obvious suspects, certainly not gypsies who never passed cottage en route to sell or beg in town.

12. Children accustomed to play down by sheepwash.

12. Children knownto have played in ruined cottage.

13. Killed at approx. eleven p.m. on the Saturday. Body found at three a.m. on following morning.

13. Killed possibly on the Friday. Body found some days later.

14. Connected with Hill Hill House (festivities).

14. Connected with Hill House (relationship).

And so, for the time being, the matter rests. It has to be borne in mind that whereas Mr Ward's death could have been premeditated-there is a theory that he may have been slaughtered somewhere else and taken to the cottage for burial-it hardly seems likely that Miss Patterson's murder was previously planned. Readers will remember that she had not been invited to Hill House, but was taking her brother's place. Did the murderer-since she was wearing a bulky and not very attractive fancy dress-mistake her for her brother?

We think the police might give this point more serious consideration than, so far, they appear to have done. To our mind this matter needs far more probing into than it has yet received.

* * *

Hill Manor House

The manor itself is mentioned in Domesday Book and seems to have been of moderate wealth. The entry, part of which, by courtesy of Professor Donald Cuttie who translated the abbreviations for us, we reproduce, states that 'William de Gyffe holds Hill. It was always assessed for forty hides. The land is twenty-five carucates. In the demesne there are three hides and a half. There are two ploughs there. Among the free men and the villeins there are fifteen ploughs and five more could be made.'

And so on and so forth. The entry goes on to list the tenants' various holdings, mentions the fact that the manor had a mill-some distance from the present village if it was a water-mill, we would think!-and notes that the value of the property had dropped since it was valued in the reign of Edward the Confessor, although how that value was arrived at seems to be speculative.

The historians tell us no more of Hill until the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, when the property came into the hands of a wealthy clothier from Somerset, who built the present Hill Manor House. It is a moderate-sized mansion erected in pleasant, mellow, Cotswold stone. It came into the hands of Mrs Kempson's grandfather by purchase towards the end of last century. The original gatehouse fell into disrepair and was demolished in 1906 to make way for a lodge which, owing to the shortage of domestic staff, is now untenanted, and past which it seems probable that Miss Patterson strayed on the night of her death.

The main feature of the mansion is a magnificent oak staircase leading up to the principal rooms. These rooms themselves, with their decorated plaster ceilings and Tudor fireplaces, are, we understand, show pieces. It was in the largest and grandest of these rooms, known as the grand salon, that the ill-fated young and attractive Merle Patterson was disporting herself shortly before her tragic and horrible death.

There is no legend of the customary 'grey lady' who haunts so many sixteenth- and seventeenth-century manor houses, but if we were inclined to superstition (and who is not?) we might be forgiven if we fancied we met a 'glimmering girl', as W. B. Yeats expresses it, flitting about the grounds of Hill Manor House. The police have not yet decided exactly where Merle Patterson and Mr Ward were actually done to death (it now seems unlikely that these spots were Lovers' Lane and the cottage), or what sudden panic caused the murderer to throw what seems to have been his bloody (we use the word in its Shakespearian sense-i.e. 'What bloody man is that?' Macbeth, Act I Sc. 2) his bloody weapon into the sheepwash.

Did someone who has not come forward, but who could be, perhaps, the only person on earth who could help the police with their enquiries, did someone actually surprise the murderer just as he had concluded one or other of his devilish machinations? If so, we would remind this person of his civic duties and beg him to be manly and courageous enough to come forward and tell what he knows.

If there is such a man (or woman, for the matter of that) he is assured of complete police protection from the instant he decides to open his mouth. The murderer has struck twice. It should be a matter of conscience to someone, somewhere, to come forward and help to make sure that he does not strike again.

* * *

Post Scriptum

Your correspondent has just heard that after diligent and patient search for clues, the police have come to the conclusion that Miss Patterson was enticed or forced into the disused lodge at Hill Manor House and done to death there. The public, needless to say, are rigidly excluded from the grounds.

Part One: Verdict

CHAPTER TWELVE

MRS LESTRANGE BRADLEY TAKES A HAND

Well might I say with the Apostle, 'The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus,' for I have kept you informed to some extent, my dear Sir Walter, of what has been happening during the past weeks at the Oxfordshire village of Hill. However, it now seems possible and desirable to furnish you with a fuller and more connected narrative of events, if only to clarify my own mind by airing my theories concerning their import.

As you know, I was called to Hill Manor House in my professional capacity by Mrs Kempson, in order to examine and report upon the mental state of a man who claimed to be her brother. As you also know, she then cancelled the appointment on the score of his disappearance.

Well, he has turned up again, not quick but dead. His body has been dug up from the floor of a derelict cottage by the village idiot. As though the murder of Merle Patterson, whose body, you will remember, was found near the sheepwash at the end of the village, were not sufficiently mysterious, we now have this bizarre occurrence to add to the tally.

The inquest on Miss Patterson resulted in a verdict of murder by person or persons unknown, although the police, acting somewhat precipitately, had arrested a gypsy named Bellamy Smith for the crime. They were obliged to release him, however, as, thanks to two intelligent young children and their uncle, Bellamy was able to prove a complete alibi. The contention of the police that he had suffered a torn ear in his struggle with the girl was shown to be mistaken. His earring had been dragged out during a scuffle with some drunken louts in a wrestling booth at the annual fair.

There has been considerable speculation as to what the girl was doing down at the sheepwash at all so late at night, and still in her fancy dress, but, since the release of the gypsy, the police believe that she was not killed where she was found. They think she was murdered very much nearer the manor house, probably inside a deserted lodge in the grounds, and are busily searching for any clues which will prove this. It is a tenable hypothesis and seems to fit in with the facts so far as we know them, but they are merely skeletal and inconclusive.

Whether the two murders are connected in any way seems doubtful. The police are inclined to think that we have a homicidal maniac roaming the neighbourhood and Mrs Kempson, who has called me in again more, I think, to bear her company in that big old house than for any other reason, inclines to the same view and has despatched her young grandson, his sister and their parents to their London flat to be out of harm's way. Her adopted son is also in London, where, I understand, he has employment, so she really is very lonely and I suspect apprehensive too.

The whole case bristles with difficulties. To begin with, there seems little doubt that Mr Ward was, to say the least, an eccentric. According to the respectable people with whom, at Mrs Kempson's expense, he lodged, he was a silent, ruminative man who gave no trouble but who was strangely uncommunicative. The first indication they had of his mental derangement was when he began by digging up one of their flower-beds, passed on to a large chicken-run and dug that up, then began operations on the boardless floor of the tumbledown cottage where somebody (most probably his murderer, but this has not been established) later buried his body.

The people with whom he lodged are named Christina (Kirstie) and Arthur Landgrave, and they have staying with them the two intelligent young children I mentioned. These are aged ten and eight and from them I have derived some of my information. Having watched Mr Ward's operations on the flower-bed and in the chicken-run, they also saw him come out from the ruined cottage, where he had begun to dig a hole, and later they observed him standing in the sheepwash wielding a pickaxe. Later still, they discovered that he had considerably enlarged the hole in the cottage floor so that it resembled a grave. As we now know, this resemblance became apparent to somebody other than the children.

To revert to Mr Ward, until his body was discovered, the police, guided by a statement from Mrs Kempson after the gypsy had been released from custody, thought that Mr Ward might have killed the girl, particularly as a spade believed to be his was found at the bottom of the sheepwash. According to Mrs Kempson, she had received complaints from the Landgraves concerning his strange behaviour and had no difficulty in believing that he could have become homicidal.

The trouble about this supposition is that the medical evidence is not conclusive as to whether the girl or Ward died first. You probably know how impossible it can be to become dogmatic in such matters when the time limits can fall within a matter of hours and when one body has been in the open air for a comparatively short time, whereas the other has been buried for several days before being found.

Besides, if Ward killed the girl and then committed suicide in a most unlikely manner, who buried him? Otherwise, who killed both of them, and why? Further to that, are the police looking for two murderers in a small village which is built on only two streets? It seems unlikely.

I will tell you what else I have found out so far, although you will appreciate that, as the newspapers say of the police, I am still pursuing my enquiries. Before I go on I must add that the police have uncovered no motive for either death which seems capable of bearing closer examination. Mr Ward appears to have given up all claim to the Hill Manor estate, which is now entailed on Mrs Kempson's grandson, a boy of nine named Lionel Kempson-Conyers, and as for Merle Patterson, she appears to have known nobody in the village except the people who attended the birthday party.

In any case, it seems that she was present without having received a card of invitation, but was acting as stand-in for her brother, so it hardly looks as though her death could have been premeditated, neither can anybody trace the slightest connexion between her death and that of Mr Ward except that the same murder weapon may have been used for both. The police have taken possession of a heavy garden spade which they believe was the implement employed.

One point of interest which has emerged is that the dead girl, at her own request, had changed costumes at the party with young Lionel Kempson-Conyers, but whether the fact has any bearing on her death has yet to be discovered. I have the assurance from Doctor Tassall, who was present when Merle's body was found and who was the negotiating agency between the medical students who had fabricated the costumes and their subsequent purchase by the Kempson family, that, except for size and a very slight variation in colouring, the exchanged costumes were exactly alike, so this may have some significance, but only if somebody was anxious to get Lionel out of the way by killing him.

This seems to eliminate Ward from our list of suspects even if he were not dead, since he had told Mrs Kempson that although he had inherited the estate, he could not afford to keep it up and pay the servants, and Mrs Kempson has confirmed this by telling me that it is only because of the fortune left her by her late husband that she herself can afford to go on living at Hill House. Incidentally, she tells me that she was leaving Ward a compensatory sum in her will.

Well, we are left with a most unsatisfactory list of suspects for the murder of Miss Patterson and no suspects whatever for the death of Ward unless (so far as I can see at present) he was an eye-witness when the girl was killed. But who, except the children and, perhaps, their playmates, knew that the hole in the floor so conveniently existed? That, I think, is a most interesting and important point.

I ought to add that Ward, on Mr and Mrs Landgraves' evidence, had not slept at his lodgings for two nights, so the hypothesis that he was a witness of Miss Patterson's murder is hardly tenable, for my own theory is that he was already dead when she was killed, although, of course, he may have murdered her and been slaughtered by somebody out of revenge. My contention at present is that Miss Patterson was mistaken for young Lionel, but then we are faced with a key question. Failing Mr Ward, who had already repudiated his inheritance, to whose advantage would it be to have Lionel out of the way?-and, in any case who would expect a child to be in the open so late at night?

As for the opportunity to murder Merle Patterson, well, Doctor Tassall and the adopted son-I call him 'adopted' for convenience' sake-are known to have been out of the house at the time of the girl's murder. Mrs Kempson had gone to bed (her personal maid vouches for this) but, so far as I can tell, there was no reason why she should not have slipped out of her room between ten and eleven, left the house secretly and returned to it unnoticed while the party was in full swing. As for Lionel's parents, Mr and Mrs Conyers, they say they retired to their own quarters to escape the sounds of revelry. They certainly left the party, but there seems no confirmation of where they went. However, as they were hardly likely to desire the death of their only son, if either or both are murderers they must have intended to make Miss Patterson their victim. The question here is-why? They were acquainted with her, no doubt, since she and her brother belonged to their daughter's set in London and the girls had been at school together. However, I do not suspect Mrs Kempson or the Conyers of having any hand in the murders at all. Nigel Kempson and Doctor Tassall are the horses for my money.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

THE CHILDREN'S CRUSADE

It was at Kenneth's suggestion that we mobilised our forces in order to track down the murderer.

'Our Sarah,' he said, 'has always been decent, letting us join her gang and telling fibs for us and not splitting that time I uppercut Our Ern and landed him in the brook, so I reckon we ought to let her join in if she wants to. Besides, I expect she knows far more about the village than we do.'

'There's another thing, too,' I said. 'Safety in numbers.'

'How do you mean?'

'Well, if the murderer gets to know we're on his track, he could kill two of us as easy as wink. He might think twice about killing the whole of Our Sarah's gang, though.'

'It's a good point. Let's see what she says.'

Of course there had been terrific excitement when Poachy found what was buried in the hermit's cottage. As soon as we realised what it was, we begged him to stop digging, but he had worked himself up into a frenzy and went on stabbing away with the heavy spade, so, as we did not want to see any more than we had to see, although we knew for certain that it was Mr Ward, we rushed off home to get away from the grisly scene and dissociate ourselves from Poachy's findings if we could.

At least, that was my idea. We ran into the garden, but after we had squeezed through the gap in the iron railings and were on our way past Polly's stable, Kenneth stopped running and said,

'We'll have to tell them, you know. Somebody's got to stop Poachy. Besides, he might be blamed if we don't tell.'

Unfortunately Uncle Arthur was at work on a building site the other side of the town, and as we did not think the aunts would be much help in dealing with Poachy, that only left grandfather. We were afraid of him, but we felt that some man had to know, if only to stop Poachy from continuing his excavations.

Grandfather, I remember, was furious with us. Looking back, I realise that his anger was really horror to think that we should have mixed ourselves up with what obviously was a second case of murder.

When his diatribe (which was punctuated by threatening gestures with his walking-stick and with Aunt Lally's terrified exclamations and tearful reproaches) was over, he sent us to Aunt Kirstie with orders that she was to come immediately across to speak to him.

We found her feeding the ferrets. They belonged to Uncle Arthur and we were never allowed to handle them, but sometimes there would be rabbit pie or stewed rabbit with carrots, onions, turnips and small, fluffy dumplings for Sunday dinner instead of the usual pork or chicken.

Normally we enjoyed seeing the ferrets, but on this occasion there was no time for dallying. We did not want to tell Aunt Kirstie about our grim discovery in the derelict cottage, so we gave her grandfather's message and that was all.

'Oh, dear!' she said. 'Has he had one of his turns? I'd better get over as soon as I've changed my apron, Lally is that helpless she'll be crying and wringing her hands instead of doing something sensible about it.'

'I don't think he's ill,' I said, 'but he says to drop everything and come at once. I think he wants you to get on up to the big house. That's what he said.'

'To Mrs Kempson's? Whatever for? They haven't found poor Mr Ward, have they? That would be the only reason for me to go to Mrs Kempson's.'

'I think it is about Mr Ward,' I said.

'Must be,' she said. 'I'll be glad to have him back.' She bustled about, changed her clothes for what she called her 'decent bodice and skirt' and ran with us to the next-door house. Aunt Lally was indeed crying and wringing her hands, her usual reaction in times of crisis. Grandfather was sitting very upright and rigid in his armchair. He looked like Moses, I thought, or perhaps the prophet Jeremiah. His right hand was clutching the knob of his ebony, silver-topped stick and with his left fist he was banging the table.

Aunt Kirstie said, 'Well, father, is there something you want with me?'

Grandfather glared at her.

'Where's your lodger?' he demanded.

'I wish we knew, father. Hasn't slept in his bed since that Thursday night,' she said.

'Well, get you up to Mrs Kempson's, my girl, and tell her he's sound asleep now. Take this boy and girl with you. She'll want to know all the tale. And then keep them out of my sight for a bit. Bringing all this trouble on us!'

Aunt Kirstie stared at him.

'You mean as Mr Ward's dead?' she asked, dropping her voice at the last word.

'That's my meaning, my girl, or so it seems, so get on up there quick as you can. It isn't any business of ours, except these children of Elspeth's have seemingly dragged us into it. Don't stand there gaping at me! Get along! Get along!'

'I'll get my good coat and hat,' said Aunt Kirstie. 'Mr Ward dead! Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Whatever will Mrs Kempson have to say?'

'The children better have a clean-up, too, hadn't they, if you're going to the big house?' said Aunt Lally in an undertone, as she saw us out. Aunt Kirstie agreed. To get us washed and into our best clothes took a little time and when at last we started out, Aunt Kirstie said she could not hurry up the hill. However, we reached the manor house eventually and our aunt rang the bell.

Apparently it was the butler's afternoon off, for the door was opened by a maidservant. Aunt Kirstie asked whether it would be convenient for her to speak to Mrs Kempson about something important, so, leaving us standing at the door, the maid said she would go and find out. She did not need to ask Aunt Kirstie's name. She came back in a very short time and took us to the ground-floor room in which Kenneth and I had been received the last time we had visited the manor house.

The room was in the sole possession of Mrs Bradley. She told us that Mrs Kempson was out, so, without consulting Aunt Kirstie, who did not know the whole truth, anyway, Kenneth told her our story. She listened without interrupting him. When, with a few interpolations from me and a few exclamations from Aunt Kirstie, he had finished the tale, she asked where the cottage was situated and then said she would ring up the police and that we had better return home at once, as the police would want to question us.

'Tell them the truth in a simple, orderly, straightforward fashion,' she said. 'Answer their questions briefly and to the point. I shall hope to see more of you later.' She told us to sit down while she telephoned. She had to go out of the room to do this, and while she was gone another maid brought Aunt Kirstie a cup of tea.

We could not tell the police much and I doubt whether they got anything at all useful from Poachy. Uncle Arthur was not very pleased when he came home.

'Police at my house?' he said. 'I've never been mixed up with the police, not the whole of my life. And where's it going to end? The law is cruel hard on poor people. It will be all right for that Kempson lot. They're rich. They'll get away with it. But he was our lodger, wasn't he? So they'll be on to us like the hand of God, and so I tell you, Kirstie.'

Aunt Kirstie harped upon another string.

'I don't know what come over you to want to go and play in that dirty old tumbledown shack,' she said sorrowfully. 'You got all our garden and all your grandfather's land, and the pigs and ducks and chickens and all, and your swing in the cartshed and all the fruit on the bushes, and The Marsh and the brook for your games. What call did you have to go and play in that there old dirty dump? Might have caught the fever or worse! And now we've lost our lodger, too, and not likely to get another when this comes out.'

We were silent. Her last observation affected us painfully, all the more so as it had not occurred to us, until she made it, that the death of Mr Ward, especially under such circumstances, would affect her and Uncle Arthur financially. Like my father and mother, they were anything but well off. Uncle Arthur's jobs on building sites-he was a plasterer by trade-were intermittent and I know now that, apart from allowing them to live rent-free-not nearly as much of a concession then as it would be nowadays-our grandfather, who disapproved of their marriage, did nothing to help them when they struck upon hard times, especially during the winter when there was no building going on. The most he would do-since he said once in my hearing that he could not let his daughter Kirstie starve-was to make the couple an occasional gift of a chicken or a piece of pork.

So we hung our heads and said nothing. The police came again next day, with more questions and with official notebooks in which they wrote down all Aunt Kirstie's answers about Mr Ward, and finished by saying that they would return in the evening when Uncle Arthur was home from work. We had taken refuge under the parlour table, which had a cover on it with a long fringe with bobbles on it. It formed an excellent hiding-place, and we heard the whole interview. Aunt Kirstie guessed we were there, I think, but perhaps she was glad of our company and moral support.

It was after the police had gone, and Aunt Kirstie had returned to the kitchen, and we had crawled out and sneaked down the back staircase into the scullery and the garden, that Kenneth said we must track down the murderer.

We had to wait until afternoon school came out before we could contact Our Sarah and her gang. By that time rumours of Poachy's horrid discovery were all over the village. The police had been seen going into Aunt Kirstie's house and it was known that two of them had dragged poor Poachy out of the hermit's cottage. Then his mother, who, alone of mankind, seemed able to interpret his gibberings, had gone into Miss Summers' shop to purchase a loaf of bread and spread the news. It was not known at that time who the dead man was, except to us and our family and Mrs Bradley. Even the police could not be dogmatic until the body had been formally identified, although their questioning of ourselves and Aunt Kirstie indicated their opinion clearly enough.

We did not intend to wait at the school gate for Our Sarah because we did not want to be spotted and identified by the governess as not having been at school, so we loitered outside the drill hall, knowing that Sarah and Ern would have to pass it on their way home.

We seemed to wait for a very long time, and Kenneth suggested that they must be playing on The Marsh. They hove in sight eventually and we went to meet them.

'Can't stop now,' said Our Sarah, before we could speak. 'Oi warnts moi tea.'

'After tea, then,' said Kenneth. 'It's fearfully important.'

Even Our Sarah, who had lofty ideas as to what was important and what was not, was compelled to allow our claim when we mentioned the cottage, later, after tea.

'Though Oi knows all about et,' she said, when we met at half-past five on The Marsh. 'Oi 'eard et en Mess Summers. That old nosey parker the Weddow Wenter was en there and her and Mess Summers was so busy yappen their selly 'eads orf as 'em never 'eard me come en. Tale dedn't lose nothen en the tellen, Oi'll be bound. Any road, take somethen special to breng the Weddow Wenter out from be'oind they aspedestriers of hern.'

'It was because of us that the body was discovered,' said Kenneth, repeating a phrase which the police inspector had used in our hearing when he was questioning Aunt Kirstie.

'Oi don't berlieve et.'

'It's true. We knew something was buried in that cottage, so we got Peachy to dig it up for us.'

'Then you be a body-snatcher, you young Oi say.'

'What's a body-snatcher?'

'Oi don't roightly know, but moi dad talk about 'em. Be 'anged for body-snatchen, ee can. They won't arf streng ee up 'oigh because you be only a lettle un and got no weight to ee, so they'll gev ee a long drop.'

'We didn't "snatch" anything. We simply found Mr Ward,' said Kenneth quickly.

'How do ee know as et was hem?'

'We saw a bit of that suit he always wore, and Margaret found one of his boots in the bushes. Look, Our Sarah, we want to find the murderer, because Mr Ward must have been murdered to have been buried like that. What we want to know is whether you and the gang will come in with us.'

'To look for a murderer? That's a p'lice job, that es.'

'Oh, please come in with us.'

'For whoi?'

'Well, to catch the murderer, like I said.'

'More loike the murderer 'ud ketch us, Oi reckon. Oi don't want no part of et.'

Kenneth gave up.

'It's no use arguing with her,' he said, as we made for the plank bridge and grandfather's iron gate. 'She won't budge. It's up to us, I reckon.'

Aunt Kirstie heard us come into the scullery. She told us not to make a noise because the police were interviewing Uncle Arthur upstairs in the parlour.

'And look you here,' she went on, 'I don't want you roaming about no more. You ain't to go on The Marsh or anywhere near that old cottage.'

'Police orders?' asked Kenneth.

'And mine and your grandfather's and your Uncle Arthur's. 'Tain't safe. I wishes as I could pack you both off home, but I can't do that till your father sends.'

We talked it over in the bedroom.

'What on earth shall we find to do?' I asked dolefully. 'Without the cottage-not that I really want to go there any more-and without The Marsh and the sheepwash, I don't see it's worth while being here any longer.'

'Of course it is,' said Kenneth. 'We're not forbidden the village streets and that's where we shall score. We've got to get at people and question them. Somebody must know something or have seen something. All we've got to do is find out what it is.'

'We can't just go knocking on doors.'

'I suppose not. Well, you think of something.'

As it happened, it was the Sunday school superintendent, and not myself, who thought of something, although he had no idea that he had solved the first part of our problem for us. More or less incarcerated as we felt ourselves to be, even Sunday school seemed tolerable now that we had been deprived of our meetings on The Marsh with Our Sarah and her gang, so that when, on Sunday morning, Aunt Lally suggested it before she sent us over to get our breakfast from Aunt Kirstie, she found us in an unusually compliant mood.

We allowed ourselves without protest to be arrayed like the lilies of the field and set off in good time for the tin-roofed building. We settled ourselves in decorous silence, listened without comment to the young and ignorant teacher's exposition of the Sermon on the Mount and, when classes were over, paid attention to the superintendent's remarks before we had the closing hymn and his snuffling, unctuous, extempore closing prayer. His little homily included the story of the Children's Crusade which took place in the Middle Ages. Then he urged us all to become Crusaders. (He did not mention that the unfortunate children never reached the Holy Land, but ended up in the slave markets of North Africa, and we did not know this at the time.) He drew a picture of their missionary zeal, their courage, their devotion to what he called The Cause and he finished up by saying that at the end of the meeting there would be collecting boxes for distribution to all those who would be willing to collect for Foreign Missions.

I looked across the room at the boys' side of the hall and caught Kenneth's eye. I made our tiny signal which meant Shall we? He nodded vigorously so, at the end of the session, we joined a small party of volunteers at the table where the star-cards were marked (an asterisk if you had attended and were punctual, a zero if you had attended but were late, the latter to count only half a mark towards the tally which meant a ticket for the Sunday school treat) and received our collector's card and a tin with a slit in the top.

The secretary who marked the cards would not give us a card and a tin each. He said that we did not come regularly.

'No, but we come when we can,' said Kenneth, 'and I'm sure we can get you some money.' So the man handed me the collector's card and, with a jocular remark that the gentleman always carried the luggage, gave the tin to Kenneth.

'Did you think what I thought?' he asked, when we got outside.

'Of course. It makes a whale of a reason for nosey-parkering round the village and asking questions,' I said. 'We shall have to be careful, because people do hate giving money except for hospitals and-'

'And the life boat,' he suggested.

'Yes. But I don't think people will be very interested in foreign missions. Our teacher in London told us that she gave up worrying about foreign missions when she found that they sent out the missionaries and the trade gin in the same ship.'

'What's trade gin?'

'I don't know, but that's what she said, so we'd better be careful not to argue and only start asking those people who won't turn nasty.'

'There are some we'll have to talk to, whether they turn nasty or not. We shouldn't argue with grown-ups, anyway. You only get your ears boxed if you do.'

Instead of going straight back to Aunt Kirstie for our Sunday dinner, we decided to call first on Aunt Lally.

'She goes to the Mission Hall regularly on Sunday evenings, or else to the Baptist Church in the town,' said Kenneth, 'so I think she is certain to give us something and it helps a lot if you can show people your card with somebody's name already on it and there's something to rattle in the tin. I know that from Cubs. A Boy Scout gave me the tip. "Shove a dud coin and a couple of buttons in before you start," he said, "and get one of your mates to sign the book." He said it always works, and it seems to, because I tried it, although I did put in a ha'penny of my own with the buttons and signed the card myself-well, it was a little notebook, actually-so as not really to cheat.'

So began our private Crusade in quest of Mr Ward's murderer. We only hoped we would not be called back to London before we had found him.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

THE HILL VILLAGE IRREGULARS

Aunt Lally subbed up handsomely with three lovely great pennies. She wanted to save her threepenny bit (silver in those days) for Church collection, she said. Anyway, the pennies suited us because they set up such a suggestive response when we rattled them in the tin. Aunt Lally improved the occasion by telling us that we would get our reward in heaven hereafter by working for the Lord, and warned us on no account to go into the village public house with our collecting box.

That belongs to the Salvation Army,' she somewhat ambiguously explained. When we went next door for our Sunday dinner with Aunt Kirstie the police were there again. Uncle Arthur was in the kitchen. He sent us straight up to the parlour and there the inspector took us all through our story again about how we had persuaded Poachy to dig up Mr Ward's body. The police sergeant sat at the table and checked off our replies against, I suppose, the previous statements we had made.

There was nothing new we could tell them. We repeated our stories of Mr Ward's digging operations in various places and our theory that the hermit might have hidden money or other treasure under the floor of the cottage; we told of Mr Ward's mad behaviour in the sheepwash and of the grave he had dug. They questioned us closely about this. What had made us think of a grave? Had we ever seen an open grave? What made us ask Poachy to help us? Why had we forced apart the bars in the iron fence which bounded the back garden? Who else ever went into the cottage?

We answered truthfully, although the questioning made me nervous. The inspector realised this because, as he got up to go, he said,

'It's all right, youngsters. We don't suspect you of doing anything wrong and we shan't be troubling you again.' To Aunt Kirstie he said, 'We'll see ourselves out, Mrs Landgrave. If anything else concerning Mr Ward should occur to you which you think may help us, I shall be glad to know.'

When he and the sergeant had gone, Kenneth said,

'We ought to have asked them if they'd like to give us something for our missionary box.'

They'd have thought it cheek,' I said, 'and it doesn't do to cheek the police. You get sent to Borstal.'

After dinner we decided that Sunday afternoon was a bad time to go round the village asking for charity, because money given away on Sunday was for church collection, and anyway, all the grown-ups would be taking their Sunday afternoon siesta and would not be pleased at having to get up and answer the door, so, to repay Aunt Lally for her kind contribution to our missionary box, we went to her while she was doing the washing-up and asked for something Sundayish to read. That sent her happily up to her afternoon rest. We read for a bit, then we sneaked out into the garden to plan the morrow's campaign and draw up a list of people we wanted to question, but by the time Aunt Lally came downstairs again to wake grandfather and give him his tea we were back indoors with our Sunday pamphlets. She was very pleased with us.

When Monday morning came I think that, but for Kenneth, I would have abandoned our project. What had seemed such an amazingly good idea in Sunday school looked far less attractive at breakfast time on the following day. I said to my brother,

'Do you really think we'll do any good?'

'Of course we shall. Think, if we can beat the police at their own game!'

'But even if we do find out something important we shall have to tell it to them.'

'Not to them; not directly, anyway.'

'What shall we do with it, then? It won't be any good just keeping it to ourselves.'

'Of course not. We tell Mrs Bradley up at the manor. She'll know whether it's important enough to pass on. In fact, I vote we tell her everything we find out, whether it's important or not. I'll tell you something else, too. We might get hold of something to do with that other murder. You know, the girl who was at Lionel's sister's party.'

'Do you really think so?' I asked doubtfully.

'Well, we've put Mrs Grant on our list and we know Doctor Tassall visits her-she's his patient because of her ague she's always complaining about-and Doctor Tassall writes letters-I expect they're love-letters or some rot like that, you know...'

'Yes, to Amabel Kempson-Conyers. Do you wish we had a double-barrelled name?'

'Anybody can have one if they are stuck-up enough, I believe. We could call ourselves Innes-Clifton if we liked.'

I tried it over a time or two and then rejected it.

'I'd feel silly,' I said. 'But about Mrs Grant? She can't know anything worth much about Mrs Kempson and those people up at the big house.'

'We shan't know that unless we ask her. Then there's Old Mother Honour. Her shop is almost opposite the hermit's cottage. She must know something about who goes into it.'

'Well, so do we. Our Sarah and her lot, then us, then Mr Ward and now Poachy.'

'And the man who put Mr Ward in that hole and buried him. Suppose she knows who that was, eh? And suppose she told us, and we told Mrs Bradley, and she told the police! We might even get our names in the papers!'

'I wouldn't want that, unless they'd caught the murderer first and locked him up.'

'Well, they'd have done that, of course, on our information.'

So I committed myself to the enterprise and we began with Mrs Grant. We found her sitting on her doorstep as usual rocking herself to and fro and moaning about her ague.

'I hab de ague bery bad, bery bad,' she told us.

'I'm sorry to hear it,' said Kenneth in a grown-up way, keeping the collecting-box behind his back, for we did not want to frighten her off before we had got any information out of her which she might possess. Besides, it was rumoured in the village that she was a Catholic, although, so far as was known, she never went to church. Anyway, I doubted whether she would give anything towards the Sunday school's Foreign Missions because, after all, she herself was a foreigner and might think it a cheek of the English to send out missionaries. She might even have feasted off a missionary in her earlier life, I thought. 'Still,' my brother went on, 'I suppose even the ague is better than being murdered.'

'Murdered? Mudder ob God, who is murdered?'

'Surely you know,' I said, taken aback, all the same, by what I believed to be a blasphemous exclamation. 'You heard about the girl at the sheepwash, and now Mr Ward.'

'Nobody don' tell me notting. No friends I got in dis place.'

'No, they're not a very friendly lot,' said Kenneth. 'We can tell you about the murders if you like.'

'You come in. I gib you glass ob good wine.'

'No, thank you all the same. We're Band of Hope,' I said, afraid that Kenneth was going to accept the invitation. 'Have you seen the doctor lately?'

'Doctor no damn good. I tell him not to come no more. I got no more letters to gib him.'

'Letters?' We pricked up our ears.

'Long time young lady send embelopes to me. Inside is letter in smaller embelope address to Doctor Tassall. It is an arrangement. He treat me free for my ague, I gib him his letters. Dey come first from France, den London, but no more. Young lady she don' write no more letters and I don' have money to pay doctor, so I tell him not to come no more, and he don' do notting for de ague, anyway. Now I go indoors, sit by fire. Goodbye.'

'Well, that wasn't much good,' said Kenneth, as we walked on down the village street. 'Not that I expected much from her.'

'I think we ought to make a note about the letters,' I said. 'Letters are always important. Look at the letter Laurie wrote to Meg, pretending it came from his tutor. There was an awful row about that. And look at the letter that man in the pub wrote to Jellicoe that could have got Mike Jackson expelled when he biked over at night to pay the five pounds.'

'Tell Mrs Bradley about the letters, do you mean?' Kenneth was obviously impressed by my arguments, for, although he had not read Little Women, he, like me, had wallowed in the Captain magazine which was in bound volumes in our local public library at home, and especially did we love the school stories by P. G. Wodehouse.

'Well, I bet it's something nobody but Mrs Grant knows about,' I said. 'What only one person knows must be a secret of some sort and secrets, like letters, are always important.'

We walked on and then stopped outside the Widow Winter's house. She was on our list, but neither of us wanted to knock on her door.

'We could leave her till last,' said Kenneth, 'and then perhaps we shan't need her at all.' We went on to Mother Honour's, but all she said when she saw our box was,

'I'm here to take money, not give it. Out you get!'

So out we went. We stood outside the little post-office and looked at the tumble-down cottage across the road.

'She must know something,' said Kenneth. 'After all, her shop door is bang opposite. If only I hadn't put my ha'penny in this silly tin I could have bought some sweets and then perhaps she'd talk to us.'

'Not for only a halfpenny; I said. 'We'd better try Miss Summers next, I suppose. She lives nearly opposite Mrs Grant, so we might hear something more about the letters.'

'They can't be all that important.'

'They must be, or else they wouldn't need to be kept so secret.'

'They wouldn't be about the murders, anyway. They might be love-letters. Something silly, anyway, I'll bet. I thought Amabel was an awfully silly girl, didn't you? Besides, you and I used to have a secret post, don't you remember?'

'Yes, but it was only a shoe-box with a slit in the lid. Well, do we try Miss Summers or don't we?'

So we tried Miss Summers, but it was not any good. As soon as she spotted the collecting-box she said,

'You're the third lot that's come bothering me. Don't you know it's against the law to beg?'

'It isn't for ourselves,' said Kenneth.

'Don't you tell me that! You children are all the same. You know what to do with a hatpin, I'll be bound!'

'Well,' said Kenneth, when we got outside, 'if we didn't then, we do now, and it is in a good cause. Even Aunt Lally would agree to that.'

'You're not going to winkle out her three pennies, are you?' I asked, torn between excitement and terror. 'Wouldn't it be stealing?' (Stealing, to our minds, was a much greater sin than murder. The truth is, I suppose, that stealing came within our comprehension; murder, although we had had evidence of it, still did not.)

'Well, David took the shewbread when there wasn't anything else for his men to eat.'

'He didn't steal it, though. The priest gave it to him.'

'Well, Aunt Lally gave the pennies to us. She didn't say anything about missionaries when she put the money into the tin. We'll have to make it up later on, of course. If it wasn't in a really good cause I wouldn't do it. Let's get back to Aunt Kirstie's and get hold of a hatpin.'

All our fiddling and fidgeting, however, failed to produce a single coin. I was immensely relieved and I believe Kenneth was, too.

'Oh, well,' he said at last, when we returned the hatpin surreptitiously to the crown of Aunt Kirstie's best hat, 'I suppose it's really God's money and He's holding on to it. We'd better have one more go at people and it's no use funking it. We've got to try the Widow Winter.'

Greatly to our surprise we found the Widow Winter on the defensive when she answered our knock on her front door.

'Ef your grandad sent you,' she said, 'you tell hem et ent no good. Oi ent got et and that's a fact. Oi do know as how Oi'm a lettle bet be'oind-'and, but he'll get et when Oi gets moi next Lord George.'

We had no idea what she was talking about, but Kenneth dropped the collecting-box behind a bush in her tiny front garden and I said,

'Grandfather didn't send us. Could we just speak to you for a minute about the murders?'

'About the murders? Not about the rent?'

Light dawned on me. She was behind with her rent. I knew how people dreaded that. Eviction for non-payment of rent was all too common in those days, I suppose. We knew that the first thing our own mother did when father brought home his wages at the end of the week was to count out the rent-money and put it in the tea-caddy ready for the rent-man when he came on Monday morning. We realised, therefore, with the precocious intelligence of the children of the poor, that if the Widow Winter owed our grandfather even two weeks' rent we had the whip-hand of her, especially as being behind with her rent was the last thing she would want her neighbours to know about.

'Not about the rent. I expect grandfather will wait a bit longer,' I said. 'But we want to talk to you, please, Mrs Winter. We won't keep you long, but it's very, very important.'

'And about the murders?' Her long thin nose appeared to quiver with eagerness. 'Well, you better come enside, then.'

So, for the first and last time in our lives we penetrated into the forest of pot-plants from behind which she kept watch over the comings and goings of the village. The room was airless, stuffy and heavy with a smell of wet and decaying foliage. She asked us to sit down, but she herself remained standing at the window behind her barrage of plants, barely turning her head when she spoke to us. It seemed as though she could not bear to take her eyes off the village street, and the houses opposite her own, even for a moment.

'It's about Mr Ward,' I said. 'Aunt Kirstie's lodger, you know.'

'I ded hear as they dug hem up en the old cottage down the road. Murdered for hes money, Oi reckon.'

'For his money?' This, to us, was entirely a novel idea. 'But he didn't have any money.'

'Oh, dedn't he, though!' She sniffed importantly. 'Only went to the public every day of hes loife and took hes denner there as well as hes beer. Every four weeks he was en Old Mother Honour's lettle post-office a-changen of hes bets of paper Messus Kempson sent hem.'

'How do you know?' asked Kenneth.

'Talked to Messus Honour when Oi got moi Lord George dedn't Oi? Ferret and foind out, that be moi motto. Ef ee don't arsk ee don't learn, do ee? Don't you arsk questions when you be at school?-whech Oi do notece as you beant there thes mornen. Whoi not, then?'

This question ought to have non-plussed us, but we had agreed upon our answer to it if it was put to us, as we thought it might well be.

'Because the police and Mrs Kempson and an important lady called Mrs Bradley have asked us to help them and, in any case, our school is in London, not here,' I said glibly, for we had memorised and rehearsed this wording. The Widow Winter withdrew her gaze from the window long enough to give us a hard look, but all she said was,

'Oh, Oi see. Oi follered hem ento the shop one day to boi moiself a stamp and Oi seen hem get twenty pound acrorst the counter-just loike that! The post-offece in the town ded used to send Old Mother Honour the money special every month, Oi reckon, so as her could pay et out to hem. Her wouldn't never have all that money en the tell, and her'd have to gev et to hem when he handed over hes money-orders-four on 'em!'

This was a revelation to us. Twenty pounds! The largest amount we had ever seen at one and the same time was the five pounds our father received every Quarter Day for travelling expenses. As he always used his bicycle for getting about, the five pounds came in very handy indeed and we always felt immensely proud of him when he put them out on the kitchen table in front of mother and they laughed together with pleasure over them.

'Oi'll tell ee sommat else,' said Mrs Winter. Like so many lonely people (and, ostracised as she was in the village because of all the spying she did, I imagine that she was very lonely indeed) she talked to us as though we were her own age. 'You knows about the noight the young lady was kelled? Well, Oi 'adn't got off to sleep-Oi sleeps en the front room, see?-when Oi hears one o' them moty-cars go boy.

'"Oi knows the sound of that there," Oi says to moiself. "That be Doctor Matters' car," Oi says. "But 'twouldn't be hem, not at past ten o'clock," Oi says. "That'll be Doctor Tassall-ah, and what do he get up to weth old Mother Grant? Loike foine to know that, Oi'ud."'

'I expect he goes to look after her ague,' said Kenneth.

'Not wethout she paid hem, and that she can't afford, so what goes on? But now you lesten here. Oi be loyen awake, wonderen, and turnen Doctor Tassall over en moi moind, loike, when Oi hears another car, blest ef Oi don't. And who do ee thenk that was, then? Whoi, et was Mester Noigel Kempson, that's who et was. Knows hes car too, Oi does. "So what goes on?" Oi says to moiself. Woild young men, the two of 'em, Oi thenks. So Oi puts on moi wrapper and Oi sneaks down the stairs and Oi goes out to moi front gate and what do Oi see? Et's a lovely clear noight, not near what ee'd call dark, and Oi sees a beg shadder standen opposyte Messus Honour's.'

We hardly dared to breathe. This was true drama and greatly superior to anything Our Sarah had told the Sunday school children on the day after the murder.

'Please go on!' said Kenneth. 'What happened next?' Mrs Winter, sparing a second from her window-gazing to turn and shake her head, replied regretfully,

'Don't Oi wesh Oi knowed! Oi reckon et were a car, but whether et were Doctor Matters' car, or whether et were young Mester Noigel's car weth him or somebody else or hem and somebody else en et, es more nor Oi can tell ee.'

'You don't mean the girl they found down by the sheepwash?' asked Kenneth.

'No better than she should a-ben, ef you arsk me! A proper lettle flebberty-gebbet. Must ha' ben. Out to meet some man or other, Oi reckon, and he done for her. But you wouldn't understand, at your age, and quoite roight as ee shouldn't. There've allus ben goens on and more goens on, and the gentry be worst o' the lot. Ah, and that young Doctor Tassall, too. Hem and hes Messus Grant!'

'We don't think Mr Ward was murdered for his money,' said Kenneth, 'but perhaps be found the treasure in the hermit's cottage and was murdered for that.'

'Treasure? What treasure?' Her long nose quivered again.

'Well, something must have been buried there, or why did Mr Ward dig up the floor?'

'Hem? Proper dotty-loike, weren't he? Touched en the head, Oi reckon.' She had scarcely at all ceased to keep vigil at the window and now she exclaimed: 'There's somebody new awalken down the road! Now who would that be, Oi wonder? Look loike her as Oi seen en the Kempson's car a-comen back from the town station weth luggage an' all.'

'Do you mean Mrs Bradley?' asked Kenneth, jumping up from his chair.

'You keep out o' soight! You keep out o' soight!' cried Mrs Winter in agony. 'Nobody don't never see nobody watchen out moi front winder!'

'She's got a hope!' said Kenneth, when we were outside the front door and he had scooped up the money-box. 'Oh, well, if she owes her rent, it wouldn't be any good asking her for money.' We shot out of Mrs Winter's front gate and joined Mrs Bradley in the road. I thought she seemed pleased to see us.

'Well, well, well! The Baker Street Irregulars!' she said. At that time we had not read the Sherlock Holmes stories and so this quip was lost on us. Later I wondered how she knew or guessed that we had been doing-or trying to do-some detective work.

'How have you got on?' was her next question. 'And to what extent, if any, has a good cause benefited from your questionable endeavours?'

We knew she was pulling our legs, but Kenneth answered truthfully.

'We've only got threepence ha'penny, and the ha'penny is mine. At least, it was mine before I put it in the box, and Mrs Honour won't answer any questions because we haven't any money to spend.'

'That is a deficiency which can be dealt with.'

'Oh, no!' I said, as she took a fat purse out of her skirt pocket. 'We're not allowed to take money.'

'This is not money; merely working expenses,' she said. I thought of father and his quarterly five pounds, and this did seem to put a different complexion on the matter. 'In a business concern,' she went on, 'it is quite usual for the partners to put up the capital and for others to take a salary and work for the firm until such time as they, too, are in a position to invest in it.'

We told her what had happened so far.

'Valuable information from Mrs Grant,' she commented, 'and a useful pointer from Mrs Winter. It was one which had already occurred to me, so I am glad to have an opinion which coincides with mine, especially as it comes from such a source. I imagine, from what I have heard about her from various persons, that what Mrs Winter does not know about what goes on in the village is, as the saying goes, not worth knowing. You have done well. As you probably thought, Miss Summers may have picked up gossip from the baker with whom, I am told, she has a platonic understanding. As for Mrs Honour, as you think and say, living, as she does, almost opposite the cottage in which Mr Ward was found, she must have something to report. Let me accompany you into these Hansel and Gretel dwellings and we will put the owners to the question.'

'That's what they used to call it when the Spanish Inquisition was working,' I said. 'We won't really torture Miss Summers, will we?'

'Nor Mrs Honour, I trust. Did you know that our English version of Hansel and Gretel is completely bowdlerised? In the original version collected by the brothers Grimm, no witch appears except the wicked step-mother, who is referred to not as a witch but as a fairy, albeit, we must suppose, a wicked one, and there is no house made of confectionery in the story. Hansel, in fact, is turned into a fawn after drinking from the third of the forbidden brooks and is cherished by his sister Gretel until the king who marries her catches the wicked fairy and makes her change Hansel back again. Well, never mind Miss Summers. Let us concentrate upon Mrs Honour.'

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

MRS LESTRANGE BRADLEY AGAIN

It was clear that Margaret and Kenneth knew Mrs Honour's shop-window display off by heart and I feel sure that they could have played Kim's Game with the items with great success. This being so, we went inside the shop, as there was a further display within, so that comparisons could be made and merits weighed up and discussed.

While they were choosing what I was to buy for them, I entered into conversation with the shopkeeper and postmistress concerning the stamps I should require to send a letter to America. Having settled this matter, I then purchased envelopes and notepaper and asked whether she did not think that the American police were more efficient than our own.

As I had hoped and anticipated, this proved to be an effective ploy, for she replied that, if they were not, she hardly supposed they would catch any criminals at all. I agreed with her and suggested that it was disgraceful that a woman like herself, living alone-that was a shot in the dark, but it found its mark-should be without police protection. She agreed and immediately confessed that she now felt extremely nervous at nights, since she knew that there was a fiend in human shape roaming about the village. She added that no one was safe.

'Must be a madman,' she said. 'Who with any sense in their head would kill first an innocent young lady who was not even known in the place, and then a nice, quiet gentleman like Mr Ward?'

'Oh, was he nice and quiet?' I asked. She assured me that he was and that he called regularly at her shop to buy snuff, for she had a licence to sell tobacco. He also used the post-office counter, she added, but only once a month.

'I suppose you cannot see from behind your counter which children or other people might ever have gone into the cottage where Mr Ward's body was found,' I remarked. She said that the police had asked her that, but she could tell them nothing except that some rude children occasionally came and shouted in at her doorway so that she was obliged to chase them away.

'The last lot ran into the cottage to get away from me, but that was weeks ago,' she said. 'I've seen nothing since.'

So the young Cliftons made their modest purchases, thanked me quite unnecessarily and we made our way up the slope to the house where they were staying. Having franked myself, so to speak, by purchasing their confectionery for them, I said that I should be interested to meet their aunt.

She proved to be a buxom, kindly woman, very different from the elderly and (I suspect) shrewish Mrs Honour, and when the children introduced me as a friend of Mrs Kempson-they had insisted upon taking me up the steps to the front door, although I am sure their usual entrance was by the sideway and the kitchen-Mrs Landgrave took me into the parlour and insisted upon giving me refreshment. We then got rid of the children and settled down to conversation about Mr Ward.

Yes, she said, he had been quiet enough and gave no trouble. She knew he spent time at the village public house, but declared that she had never seen him what she called 'the worse'. On the other hand, during the week or two before his death she had become increasingly worried about his idiosyncrasies. He had dug up their garden and her father's chicken-run and one day she had seen him come into the kitchen just as she had put the children's mid-day dinner on the table and had noticed that he was soaking wet up to his waistcoat and had great splashes of mud on his face.

Subsequently, although they had tried to hide the fact, she found that Kenneth's shorts and Margaret's cotton frock were also wet and muddy. When she discovered this and challenged them about it, they reported that they had seen Mr Ward standing in the sheepwash wielding a pickaxe. They had been alarmed and had hidden partly in the brook when he abandoned his strange occupation and appeared to be coming their way.

I had heard something of Mr Ward's pickaxe and spadework from Mrs Kempson, who had had it from Mrs Landgrave, but I was glad to get it at first hand from the same (I thought) reliable source.

'Do you think,' I asked, 'that Mr Ward attacked somebody with either spade or pickaxe and was killed by that person in self-defence and subsequently buried in the hope that his death could be kept from the police?'

'I can't see him going for anybody,' she said, 'not unless he had gone out of his mind. He was always quiet and decent when he was here.'

'Yet you were sufficiently anxious about the state of his mind to contact Mrs Kempson,' I said. She explained that it was the children of whom she had been thinking.

'It isn't nice to have anybody that's a bit touched when you have children around,' she said. 'Besides, we thought Mrs Kempson ought to know.'

'Did you think it strange,' I asked, 'that Mrs Kempson did not accommodate him at the manor house? Surely she had plenty of room up there?'

But Mrs Landgrave refused, very properly, of course, to commit herself on either of these points, protesting that she had never thought about it and that she had been glad of the money which Mrs Kempson paid. This seemed to lead us to a dead end and I was about to thank her for the refreshment she had provided-a glass of very good cowslip wine and a biscuit-when a thought recurred to me. I say 'recurred', my dear Sir Walter, because in an earlier idle moment it had occurred to me one day when Mrs Kempson was describing her first meeting (after his lengthy absence) with Mr Ward. This thought was that it was difficult to reconcile the cool, hard-headed, somewhat cynical ex-convict which she had described to me, with the mentally deranged individual of quiet, inoffensive habits but eccentric behaviour pictured to me by Mrs Landgrave.

Are you a suggestible person?' I asked her. 'I mean by that,' I explained, for I could see that she did not understand me, 'the kind of person who is apt to be influenced by the last speaker, for example.'

I was sure she would deny this, and she did. (People always do.)

'You're thinking of my sister Lally, the children's other auntie,' she informed me. 'I don't think anybody could make me change my mind once I'd made it up, except that sometimes, when I'm cross with the children, they can get round me, especially Ken, who is the most lovable little boy.'

'They are charming children,' I said. 'Well, then, Mrs Landgrave, if you are not suggestible, I would like to put a plain question to you and will wait while you consider your answer.'

'Oh, dear! You sound like that policeman,' she said. 'All right, then, you ask and either I'll answer truthfully or not at all.'

'Fair enough,' I agreed. 'Now Mr Ward was with you for just over five years, I believe. Did you ever wonder whether the man whom Mrs Kempson sent to you was the Mr Ward who carried out all that extraordinary delving?'

She stared at me, then she closed her eyes. She certainly took her time before she opened them again. Then she shook her head firmly.

'No,' she said decisively. 'He may have gone a bit wrong in his head, poor man, but it was the same gentleman. Turned up one afternoon with his little portmanteau of clothes and said he was Mr Ward and he believed it was all arranged he should stay with me.'

'Did Mrs Kempson accompany him to introduce him to you?' I asked, although I felt I knew the answer from the way she had described his arrival. She shook her head again.

'She didn't bring him nor did she ever come here to visit him,' she averred. All she did was to send me his money every week and him his money orders to cash at the post-office each month. I knew about that because the postman used to come before Mr Ward got up and I used to put the letter-it was the only one he ever got-by the side of his plate, and once he opened the envelope just as I brought in his eggs and bacon and one of the money orders fell out. I saw what it was, although he scuffled it up again all quick. I didn't see the amount and anyway that was no business of mine.'

I took my leave. She had given me something to think about. It seemed to me that another consultation with Mrs Kempson might be advantageous. Before I returned to Hill House, however, I thought I would pay a visit to the Widow Winter. From what the children had told me, it seemed that, if she chose, she could prove to be a valuable source of information about what I was beginning to think must be the pseudo Mr Ward.

She was all servility and unctuousness, a female Uriah Heep if ever I met one, and she invited me in without enquiring either my name or my business. I found out at once that, to some extent, she knew both. (I attempt to reproduce her remarks.)

'Do please to set down, ma'am,' she said, when she had conducted me into a small, airless room which smelt, although less attractively, like one of the hothouses at Kew Gardens. 'You well be the lady as es stayen up the hell weth the lady of the manor, and very glad she es of your company, Oi'll be bound.'

'Yes, Mrs Kempson and I are good friends,' I said, 'but it is not of her that I have come to speak.'

'Oi see you goen up the road with them cheldren of Messus Landgrave's. Dear little souls they be, and knows how to behave themselves, as there's others as don't. Ben to see Messus Honour, Oi reckon, and bought the cheldren some sweeties, as Oi seen them weth sherbet dabs and a bag what could have ben toffee. Oi knows you never went to Mess Summers, because her leves opposyte and Oi would have seen you go en there, wouldn't Oi? So ef the keddies had sweets et was from Messus Honour's, not as she could tell ee much, Oi'll lay. But et pays to be koind to lettle cheldren, don't et, ma'am? The good Lord's lambs they be, when all's said and done. Oi ded hear as et was them as got that poor Poachy Leng to deg up that poor Mester Ward. What an experience for innocent cheldren! Enough to sour their loives on 'em, Oi do declare!'

'I do not think they saw the actual body, you know. They appear to have fled to their grandfather as soon as they realised what Mr Ling was digging up,' I said. 'It seems that the little girl had found one of Mr Ward's elastic-sided boots in the garden of that hideous cottage and jumped to the right conclusion as soon as Mr Ling uncovered the first signs of clothing on the cadaver.'

'To thenk of that, now! And Poachy Leng, as es hes mother's cross en loife-not but what Oi suppose we've all got one of them to trouble us-goen about the vellage as pleased weth hesself as ef he'd found a crock of gold instead of a poor murdered man!'

'Crocks of gold are only found at the foot of the rainbow, I believe,' I said.

She looked at me with a kind of ghoulish craftiness and observed,

'Oi reckon Mester Ward found a crock of gold, all roight, though not en that there old cottage.'

'How do you mean?' I enquired.

'Getten money out of Messus Kempson loike that! Ben en Mother Honour's, Oi have, when Oi see her push hem twenty pounds across her counter, and Oi was en Mess Summers' shop another toime when Oi see Messus Landgrave change a pound for a couple of loaves and a quarter of tea. Oi says to moiself as that must be some of the money as Mester Ward brengs en. Oi see the manor servant come to Messus Landgrave's proud as a lord on one of the carriage horses. Come every Froiday he ded, regular as clockwork, and et was on a Froiday, after he ben, as Oi was en Mess Summers' that toime. Oi knows as Arthur Landgrave, when he's en work, whech ent always, hem be'en a plasterer, gets paid of a Saturday, not a Froiday, so when Oi sees her change a pound on a Froiday, well, you know what to thenk, don't ee?'

'How do you know a servant comes to Mrs Landgrave's house on Fridays?' I asked.

'Her front railings stands a long way further out nor moine. Oi can't see her front door, but Oi can see who comes to her front gate. Oi see you and them cheldren go en a whoile ago.'

'So I suppose you could see Mr Ward leave her house when he went into the village to obtain his money. How did you know it came from Mrs Kempson?'

Told ee of the servant what used to roide down to Landgrave's. He's the Lettlemore's fourth boy and Oi was en Mess Summers' when hes mother come en and Oi made a remark and she stared me down and called me a nosey old busybody, ef ever you heard the loike, and said p'raps Oi'd loike to know who posted a letter every month to Mester Ward and whether they posted et up on the London road or where. So then Oi knowed as sommat funny was goen on.'

'I suppose Mr Ward was an object of curiosity in the village,' I said. 'I know what he was wearing when he was found. Did he always wear elastic-sided boots?'

She launched herself into a full description of Mr Ward's appearance and I memorised it carefully so that I could repeat it to Mrs Kempson, although I did not think it would be of much help for purposes of comparison, since it was five years or more since she had seen what I had begun to believe was the real Mr Ward.

When I returned to Hill House I had to admit to her that I was as far off as ever from being able to elucidate the mystery of Mr Ward's death and burial, and then I asked whether she had been called upon to identify the body. She said that the Landgraves were to do that and would be called at the inquest which would be held on the following day, but that she also proposed to attend it, as it was known that she had been responsible for Mr Ward's support while he had been lodging with the Landgraves.

'You mean that the police know it?' I asked.

'Yes. I knew they would question the Landgraves, so I thought it better to come out with it,' she said. 'I did not want them to think there was any hole and corner business about the matter, since, of course, there was nothing of the sort. It was simply that I would not have Ward in this house.'

'What did Mr Ward look like when you met him?' I asked. 'Can you add anything to what you told me before?'

'Look like? I hardly remember. I suppose he was of average height, not noticeably tall or particularly short. He appeared to be of late middle-age, but I did not receive the impression that he was elderly. Apart from that, my memory fails me. He did not recall my brother to my mind and at first I doubted his claim. In fact, I still do, but it seemed so difficult and probably so expensive to prove him to be an impostor that I took the advice of my lawyers and did not attempt it. Besides, I will admit that something-his voice, I think-did stir some chord in my memory.'

'I think, you know, that it would be as well if you viewed the body. I could easily arrange with the authorities for you to do so,' I told her.

'Quite unnecessary,' she said, very firmly indeed. 'I have not set eyes on Ward since the day he made his impudent claim and should hardly recognise him again. Besides, if he has been residing with the Landgraves all this time, it must be the same man. I do not understand your questioning it.'

'Oh, I am not questioning it,' I said. 'You told me, when first we corresponded on the subject, that you had doubts of the man's true identity and that you had expressed those doubts to your lawyers. I suppose they are a reliable firm?'

'Reliable? Whatever do you mean? They are Price, Price, Whitstable and Price of County Street. They have been our family lawyers for years.'

'Ah, yes,' I said, having gained my objective, which was to find out the name of the firm without having to put a direct question to her. 'I have heard of them. No doubt they gave you the right advice.'

'It was the only advice they could give, considering the circumstances. It has saved me some thousands of pounds in costs, most likely. I was thankful to settle with Ward for his keep and his five pounds a week.'

'Surely a very modest claim for him to have made?'

'Oh, he wanted ten, but I beat him down.'

'But I thought you told me that this estate is entailed in the male line and that he was the rightful heir.'

'He did not wish to inherit. He could not have kept up the place or paid the servants. I received the impression that he was destitute or very nearly so.'

All this, of course, my dear Sir Walter, I had been told before, as you know, but it was helpful to hear it stated categorically all over again and it reinforced my resolution to contact Price, Price, Whitstable and Price and attempt to persuade one of the partners who had seen Mr Ward, when he visited them five years before, to come down and view the body so as to clear up any doubt as to whether their and Mrs Kempson's Mr Ward was also Mrs Landgrave's Mr Ward. It was the Widow Winter's attitude as well as the discrepancies in the attitudes and behaviour of the two, as described by Mrs Kempson and Mrs Landgrave which interested me. It was quite likely that Mr Ward's mental state had deteriorated over five years, but the self-confident individual who had challenged Mrs Kempson and a reputable firm of London lawyers to prove he was not her brother scarcely approximated to what I had been told in the village of the silent, snuff-taking, idiosyncratic stranger who had lived with the Landgraves during the five years which preceded his death.

The next thing which happened, dear Sir Walter, was very curious indeed. In spite of my suggestion-made more than once-that I was trespassing overlong on her hospitality and that there was nothing I could do for her except to advise her to stay with her daughter and son-in-law in London for a bit if she felt lonely and nervous at the manor house, Mrs Kempson had repeatedly told me that she was glad of and grateful for my company. On the morning following my visit to Mrs Landgrave and the others in the village, however, she appeared to be excited by a letter which she had opened at the breakfast table.

'Oh, how very nice!' she exclaimed. 'It is from Nigel. He is able to spend a day or two with me and is coming tomorrow. Oh!' Her expression changed. 'He wonders whether he can have me all to himself, as he has much to discuss with me. Now that is a little tiresome of him. He knows I have you staying with me.'

I was glad enough of an excuse to take my departure from Hill House in order to obtain more freedom of movement than I could enjoy as Mrs Kempson's guest, so I agreed at once that it was only to be expected that when Mr Nigel had the opportunity to visit her, and as they saw so little of one another in the ordinary way, they should wish to be alone together. I suggested that I should take my leave of her immediately, so that the servants could tidy my room and have everything in apple-pie order for Mr Nigel's arrival on the morrow. She seemed greatly relieved and attempted explanations which I thought it better to cut short.

I am writing this letter, therefore, from Mrs Landgrave's pleasant, semi-detached villa residence, where I have arranged to take over (temporarily) Mr Ward's two rooms.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

THE WRONGFUL HEIR

Living in Mr Ward's quarters is a revealing and pleasant experience. The Clifton children have been summoned home and, although I miss their company, it is a relief to be alone and untrammelled. This is no place for infants who know as much as Margaret and Kenneth do, and I am also keeping an eye open on my own account, for matters are coming to a head.

You will hardly need to ask why I say this when I tell you of the latest developments in this murder-ridden village. As I mentioned in my last letter, the strange discrepancies between the account Mrs Kempson gave me of Mr Ward and the descriptions of him which I have had from the children and Mrs Landgrave suggested that I should bring in an outside witness to look at the body before the inquest on it was held.

I hoped to persuade Mrs Kempson to collaborate with me in getting her lawyers to appoint one of their number to come down. I even thought that curiosity might induce her to visit the town mortuary herself to assist in the identification, and this proved to be the case.

Fortunately my official standing with the Home Office meant that no obstacles were put in my way by the local people, and yesterday the three of us, Mrs Kempson, Mr Iowerth Price and myself were able to visit the town mortuary and inspect the features of the deceased.

They meant nothing to me, of course, so far as identifying them was concerned, as I had never met the living Mr Ward, but the effect on my companions was instantaneous and, to me, gratifying. My hunch, if you care to call it that, although I prefer to have it thought that I had based it on sound psychological evidence, has proved to be correct. Neither the lawyer nor Mrs Kempson had any hesitation in declaring that the body they were shown was not that of the person who had introduced himself to them five years previously as Mrs Kempson's brother.

'No resemblance at all,' said Mrs Kempson firmly, and Mr Price agreed with her.

And a man past middle age doesn't change all that much in appearance in five years,' he said. Yet, strangely enough, when Mrs Landgrave had been taken to view the body, without hesitation she had identified it, as her husband had already done-for they were taken separately to view it-as that of her late lodger.

That is Mr Ward,' she said. Later, I asked Mrs Kempson, who was now both puzzled and shocked, which of the two men was more like what she remembered of her brother. I reminded her that she had said she did not recognise the first Mr Ward as such, and at their first meeting she had decided, until her lawyers advised against it, to contest his claim.

'So far as I remember my brother before he went to America,' she said, 'neither of them reminded me of Ward. I am beginning to think that neither of them was Ward, that the news of his death was correct and that these two men must have been friends or, more likely, fellow-prisoners of his. But how strange that they should both have conceived this idea of impersonating him, particularly as neither seems to have been prepared to claim the inheritance. Perhaps they dared not go so far as that.'

I suggested to her that she and Mr Price should give the police as full a description of the first Mr Ward as their memories would allow them to do. You will have come to the same conclusion as I did, I think, dear Sir Walter. Whoever had murdered Merle Patterson, there was no doubt in my own mind that the first Mr Ward had dramatically reappeared after five years and, for some reason known only to himself, had killed Mrs Landgrave's lodger, the second Mr Ward.

The verdict at the inquest was the anticipated one. Murder by person or persons unknown was a certainty, and so here we are, the police and I, with two unsolved crimes on our hands and a minor mystery to unravel as well.

As you will appreciate, it is difficult to envisage two murderers living in this small, obscure village, and yet there seems so little connexion between the two deaths as to suggest that they are entirely unrelated. The only link appears to be Mrs Kempson herself, but it is so weak that it hardly merits serious examination.

My first theory was that Mr Ward was murdered because he had been an involuntary witness of the slaughter of Merle Patterson, but what we learned at this second inquest has disposed of any such idea. The medical evidence now insists that Mr Ward was killed first, probably one or two days earlier than the young woman. This coincides, of course, with the Landgraves' assertion that Mr Ward had not slept in their house on either the Friday or the Saturday night.

Apart, therefore, from another theory of mine that Mr Ward himself (mentally unstable, as Mrs Landgrave had shown him to be) had murdered Miss Patterson wantonly and for no reason which would be entertained by a sane person, it is now clear that neither could he have been a witness to her death.

It seems reasonable to proceed, therefore, on the assumption either that there are two murderers living, if not actually in or near the village, at least with access to and knowledge of it, or that there is some connexion, most unlikely though it seems, between the two deaths. Otherwise there is a homicidal maniac in this neighbourhood, a most unwelcome idea.

Mrs Landgrave tells me that people are careful to lock their doors and fasten their windows at night, and to keep their children indoors in the evenings (although these are still long and light), and the gypsies are spoken of with more than the usual mistrust and suspicion.

There are two reasons why I am anxious to test my theory that the first Mr Ward is a murderer. First, I cannot think why he has waited for more than five years before killing the second Mr Ward; second, and connected with it, I wonder why he permitted the second Mr Ward to live in comfortable lodgings (which I can assure you these most certainly are) with good food and five pounds a week to spend as he pleased, when he himself might have been enjoying these benefits. One is forced to the conclusion that he had to be seen and known in haunts other than the village street and public house, and that his plans required a substitute in Mrs Landgrave's reputable home.

I should be grateful to have the benefit of your thoughts upon all this, as the experience of a great advocate would be most valuable in such a puzzling case. The explanation of its mysteries may be staring me in the face and is probably perfectly simple, but at the moment it is baffling the police as well as myself and there is talk of calling in Scotland Yard. For more reasons than one, such a proceeding would be quite in order, especially as the dead girl was a Londoner and so the solution of one of our problems may well lie in London and not in this village.

It might be worth while to remember that on the night of Merle Patterson's murder five persons, not including little Lionel, have no alibi, so far as we know, for the time of that crime. Doctor Tassall was called out to a confinement, Nigel Kempson went into the town to pick up the photographer, Mrs Kempson went upstairs (she says) to bed and Mr and Mrs Conyers retired (they say) to their own quarters.

* * *

I am grateful to note, dear Sir Walter, that your mind marches with mine. Since my last letter there have been some interesting developments. Scotland Yard have been in touch with New York and there seems no doubt now that the woman who wrote to Mrs Kempson was right and that the real (or shall we call him, for the sake of clarity, the third) Mr Ward died out there as the woman stated.

I have decided, therefore, to drop the enquiry into Mr Ward's death (I mean, by this, the murdered Mr Ward) and to concentrate on the death of Merle Patterson. The problem here, as you point out, is to determine whether she was killed in her own right, so to speak, or whether she was mistaken, as we have suggested, for Lionel Kempson-Conyers.

I obtained the Pattersons' address from Mrs Kempson, who had issued the invitation to the birthday party to Merle's brother, and went to see them at their London home. It was obvious they have not recovered from the shock of their daughter's death but were anxious to do anything in their power to bring her murderer to book.

From them I obtained the address of the school where their son is a junior master and here, my dear Sir Walter, the story takes a most unhelpful turn. The young man is as anxious as his parents are to have his sister's killer apprehended. Unfortunately his evidence has blown what I thought was my case completely to pieces.

He states that it was quite untrue that he had received an injury on the cricket field which had left him temporarily incapacitated. He had accepted the invitation to the party and had fully intended to drive his three young female friends to Hill House when he received a letter from his sister. In it she begged him to think of some way in which she could get herself invited to the party. Not to weary you with unnecessary details, the fact was that she had been engaged to young Doctor Tassall before he met and fell in love with Amabel Kempson-Conyers.

The consequence was that Doctor Tassall had asked her to release him. Amabel must have known of the engagement, since she and Merle moved in the same circles in London where, you will remember, the Conyers have a flat, and young Patterson says that it was to save herself the embarrassment of a meeting and perhaps an acrimonious confrontation that Amabel had not invited his sister to the party.

What Merle wanted, it appears, was to talk face to face with Doctor Tassall, presumably either to plead with him or to point out the error of his ways. Well, it was a simple matter to get another young master to telephone that Patterson had been struck on the knee at cricket and to suggest that his sister should transport the three girls in his stead. His parents, of course, had no reason to disbelieve the story about his injured knee, so that his sister achieved her objective in the simplest possible way, by virtue of her brother's help.

She knew that Doctor Tassall was to attend the gathering, as Mrs Kempson had included a list of guests with each invitation, a fact of which Patterson had apprised his sister. What neither of them realised was that when Doctor Tassall received his own guest-list he probably took fright when he saw the name of his jilted fiancee's brother on it and, deeming discretion the better part of valour in a possibly embarrassing situation, had invented (I think) a fictitious maternity case which would give him the opportunity to leave the party at an early hour and not to return until he expected it to be over and the guests dispersed to their homes.

What he felt when not the brother but the ex-fiancee turned up, I do not suppose he would tell me, even if I asked him. His disappearance from the scene, however, does seem to explain why Merle Patterson haunted the grounds that night. Undoubtedly her intention was to waylay him on his return and discuss matters (whether amicably or otherwise) with him where they would neither be overlooked nor overheard.

This, I know, puts some suspicion on Doctor Tassall of having caused Merle's death, but this only holds good if Doctor Tassall knew that it was Merle out there in the grounds. If the murderer (whoever he was) mistook Merle in her disguise for Lionel Kempson-Conyers, then, to my mind, that murderer would not have been Tassall, but somebody who wanted to get Lionel out of the way. As this 'somebody' is most unlikely to have been the child's grandmother or either of his parents, as I believe I indicated in one of my earlier letters, that now leaves us either with Nigel Kempson or with somebody the cricketing lists call A. N. Other, who is most unlikely to be Doctor Tassall.

So these are the problems as I see them, and in an effort to solve them I have followed my visits to Merle's parents and her brother by attempting to discover whether Doctor Tassall had been called out on a genuine case that evening and whether Nigel Kempson had made any real attempt to pick up the photographer. Up to that point I had met neither of them and had been able to form no opinion of their characters or dispositions. Not that that, in itself, means much. It is said that every person has it in his power to write at least one book and that we all hold the life of at least one other person in our hands. Both are terrifying thoughts and I do not know which is the more alarming!

I decided to tackle the young men on what I felt was my home ground as well as theirs; that is, I planned to hold both interviews in Hill village, but to give myself a slight advantage in the case of Doctor Tassall by conducting his at my newly acquired lodgings at Mrs Landgrave's and to yield a similar slight advantage to Nigel Kempson by seeing him at Hill House, where Mrs Kempson was expecting him for the weekend.

To my pleasure, (for, having no pretensions to good looks of my own, I appreciate them the more in others) both turned out to be personable young men, Kempson bright-haired and with the kind of blue eyes I have learned to mistrust, Tassall with dark hair and grey eyes and a look of recklessness which I would not normally associate with the possessor of a medical degree, whether or not he plays Rugby football. Nigel Kempson, I understand, is thirty years of age; Tassall is twenty-six and has been assistant to Doctor Matters here for nearly a year.

His association with Amabel Kempson-Conyers dates, he tells me, from a meeting he had with her in Paris early in her year at a finishing school, when he was instrumental in rescuing her from the amorous advances of two apaches in a quarter of the city into which she should not have strayed. What he himself was doing in such an unsavoury neighbourhood I did not ask.

Having heard from the Clifton children of the (obviously) clandestine correspondence which had gone on between himself and Amabel, mostly before she arrived at Hill House, I mentioned this to him.

'Oh, damn!' he said. 'Has that old Maltese woman been talking? Anyway, it wasn't by my wish that she was made a go-between. It was Amabel's idea. Young girls are always romantic in that sort of silly way.'

My experience of modern young women did not incline me to agree with him, but I did not say so. I suggested that with one letter at least he had not acceded to Miss Kempson-Conyers' wishes.

'You gave it to the Clifton children to post,' I said. He laughed.

'Everybody seems to split on me,' he said, 'same as young Lionel splits on everybody, poor kid. Anyway, that particular letter was merely to tell Amabel that I intended to accept her grandmother's invitation to the birthday party, but not to count on me because, ten to one, I should be called out on a case.'

'Ah, yes, to avoid meeting your ex-fiancee's brother,' I thought, 'and you were even more thankful that you had planned an escape route when it was the young woman herself who turned up!'

I thought this, but did not say it, and my silence seemed to put him out of countenance. After a pause, during which we continued to sum each other up, he went on:

'Well, quite early in the evening I was called out. Mrs Collins was having her first and, although I guessed it was a false alarm, I excused myself to Mrs Kempson and hopped off. When I got back, there was all this fuss about Miss Patterson having gone missing.'

'Your ex-fiancee,' I said, deciding at this point to bring my knowledge of his affairs into the open.

'Oh, well, yes,' he said. 'Yes, that's right. It was only a boy and girl affair, you know. Once I had found Amabel it blew itself out.'

'Not, perhaps, from Miss Patterson's point of view.

'Oh, well!'

'But it wasn't well, was it? Miss Patterson took it badly. You had managed to elude her in London, but when her brother received his invitation to Miss Kempson-Conyers' birthday party it included a list of guests with your name on it. Miss Patterson then got her brother to yield up his place to her, knowing that, when she arrived as the chauffeuse of her brother's car, Mrs Kempson would feel bound to ask her to stay. I imagine that a very disgruntled young woman stood about in corners and watched you dancing with Amabel Kempson-Conyers until you thought it best to execute a strategic retreat.'

'No, no! Honestly! I was called out.'

'If that is your story,' I thought, 'we shall find out whether or not you are wise to stick to it.'

He looked at his watch and exclaimed that he was due in the surgery in five minutes' time. From the front window (for my sitting-room faces the village street) I watched him unhitch his horse and canter away. I am reluctant to think of him as a murderer. Besides, even supposing he had killed Merle Patterson, there seems no reason why he should also have murdered Mr Ward unless the latter had been an eyewitness of the first killing, and this, as the medical evidence has now established, is quite impossible, otherwise we might be that much further on in our enquiries.

Doctor Tassall had made one helpful remark during our conversation, although I doubted whether, in the end, it would prove to have very much significance. Even if his call to the pregnant Mrs Collins turned out to be as mythical as I was inclined to think it was, it did not necessarily mean that he had been determined to lie about it in order to give himself time and opportunity to commit murder. I still felt that the call was far more likely to have been for the reason I have already postulated; that is, in order to get out of an embarrassing situation at Hill House. I was prepared, therefore, to keep an entirely open mind on his behalf.

I did not know at the time whether Mrs Collins was a village woman or whether she lived in the town, but I did not think I should experience much difficulty in finding her. I did not want to ask Doctor Tassall for her address, this for obvious reasons, but to Doctor Matters I was unknown and the woman's name and address were certain to be among his files, even though theoretically she was now Doctor Tassall's patient.

A telephone call seemed the best way of making contact with Doctor Matters. I mentioned Mrs Kempson's name, which was politely but cautiously received.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

NO ALIBIS

In the end Doctor Matters suggested that I should call and see him. He said that, owing to his advanced years, he rested for an hour and a half every afternoon while Doctor Tassall was out on the rounds and that he would expect me at a quarter to three.

He lived in a detached, creeper-covered residence about halfway between the village and the town and he received me in a ground-floor room whose furniture had seen better days, but which had a pleasant outlook on to a colourful, untidy, extremely long garden.

He took my hand and then waved me to a chair, took the one opposite, leaned forward and looked me over as though I were a patient he suspected of malingering in order to obtain a medical certificate to remain away from work.

'Well,' he said, 'you look healthy enough to me.'

'Quite,' I replied, 'but it is not about my health that I came to consult you.'

'I don't support charitable enterprises.'

'I am wary of them myself. Allow me to come to the point.'

'Dear me!' he said, his less than benevolent gaze becoming hostile. Are you one of these troublesome women who think they ought to have equal pay with men?'

'I have been adequately paid for some years. I am also, like yourself, a medical practitioner. Perhaps you would care to see my credentials,' I retorted.

'No need,' he said shortly. 'You wouldn't offer them if you didn't have them. What do you want?'

'I want to know whether your patient, Mrs Collins, has had a baby within the past three weeks.'

'Paternity order?'

'Not so far as I am aware. I want to know whether Doctor Tassall, your assistant, attended her confinement and on what date.'

'Why? Does he say he did? Did the careless young fool lose the baby? Is he suspected of any kind of unprofessional conduct? What the devil is all this?'

'It concerns a possible charge of murder.'

'You can't convict a medical man of murder, even if he kills mother and child.'

'If you would be kind enough to look up your files? I assure you that it is of the utmost importance. Doctor Tassall is not suspected of killing Mrs Collins, nor her baby. It must be established, however, for his sake, that he did visit Mrs Collins late in the evening of last Saturday fortnight when he was called out from a birthday party at Hill Manor House.'

'What did you mean about a charge of murder? Young Tassall is a butterfly and a jackanapes, a trifler with young women's affections, a parasite and an arbutus, but he wouldn't murder anyone except in the course of duty and that, as I've already asserted, can't be held against him.'

'The murder of a young woman with whose affections he had trifled could be held against him,' I pointed out, picking up my cue, 'so the sooner you provide him with an alibi the better.'

'God bless my soul!' he said. 'I suppose you're serious?'

'I am officially concerned with the case as the accredited representative of the Home Office, because I am its consultant psychiatrist.'

'Oh? One of those...'

'Quacks?'

'No, no, of course not. I-let me see. Did the maid bring me your card? Yes, yes, here it is. Dear me! Oh, dear, dear me! Yes, of course, of course. And you want to consult our files. What was that date again?' I gave it to him. He had no filing cabinet, so he pulled out various drawers in a large desk and groped and fumbled among the miscellaneous contents, muttering to himself as he threw some of them on to the floor, 'List! List! There's a list of patients somewhere, I know there is! Ah!' he exclaimed at last.

Apparently he had found what he was looking for. He produced out of the miscellany a set of handwritten papers pinned together at the top left-hand corner, handed it to me and said,

'Look for yourself. I don't remember the name of Collins, now I come to think of it. Don't believe there's a family called Collins on our books.'

To cut the story short, Sir Walter, there was not. I left Doctor Matters after thanking him and apologising for cutting into his rest-time and rang up the inspector from a public call-box in the town. I told him of my researches and suggested that a call on Doctor Tassall might yield some information.

'Yes,' said the inspector, 'we're keeping him in mind. Looks as though his alibi has gone bust. We would have followed it up ourselves, the way you have done, if we could have shown he had any motive for killing Mr Ward, or any reason to have known there was a ready-dug grave in that cottage. You see, we are proceeding on the assumption that whoever killed the girl killed Ward.'

This argument had considerable force, for we had agreed that the strong probability was that the same person or persons had committed both murders and that the connexion with Hill House was too obvious to be ignored.

I then returned to Doctor Matters' house.

'I think I should warn you,' I said, 'to expect a visit from the police.' This time the old gentleman was uneasy, not belligerent.

'That boy!' he exclaimed. 'A young rascal! A scallywag! A flibbertigibbet! Yes, and more. But he's well qualified, madam, good at his job. Takes a lot of work off my shoulders. Popular with the patients. No murderer, madam, I assure you.'

'Yours, judging from the list of patients you allowed me to examine, is not a large practice, I believe, Doctor.'

'A country practice only, madam, but quite large enough for me, and, in any case, I admit it is picking up since young Tassall joined me.'

'I am surprised that so restless and talented a young man, if one may so interpret your description of him, is not more inclined to work in the metropolis.'

'He had quarrelled with his godfather, who had subsidised him for some years while he was studying for his qualifications. Something about jilting a girl whom Lord Kirkdale thought a suitable match for him. Took up with the Kempson granddaughter and had his allowance withdrawn. Couldn't afford his own practice. Glad to earn a pittance from me without having to buy himself in. No expectations, you know. Irresponsible young fellow.'

'And glad to be near Amabel Kempson-Conyers at such times as she came to visit her grandmother,' I thought, 'but perhaps not where his patients are irresponsible concerned.'

* * *

Well, since my last letter, in which you learned that young Doctor Tassall appears to have no alibi for the time and date of the murders, I have continued my borrowings and have come up with another gradu diverso, via una. In other words, our other chief suspects also cannot produce acceptable alibis. Neither the police nor I have seriously suspected Mrs Kempson or Mrs Conyers unless either of them had a male accomplice, since we hardly think that the interment of Mr Ward, even though he appears to have dug his own grave, was the work of a woman, nor is the murderer's method of dispatching his victims a likely one for a female to have employed. This I think I have already mentioned. In any case, I am not concerning myself at the moment with the death of Mr Ward.

Mr Conyers, I suppose, must remain on our list, since his only alibi for the time of Miss Patterson's murder rests solely on his wife's assurance that he was with her the entire evening, first at the birthday revels and later in his own quarters. This, I know, is against my previous judgment, but that depended largely upon Lionel Kempson-Conyers' being the proposed victim.

Well, Mr Conyers claimed, as we know, to have retired to his own part of the house. As he did not even ring for a drink, there is nothing to substantiate this claim and for the present we must ignore it, although my commonsense still tells me that it is almost certainly true.

With Mr Nigel Kempson, however, we are on different and much safer ground and, not to weary you with overmuch repetition, his alibi no longer holds water, but is as full of holes as a domestic colander. In brief, this is what happened.

It seemed to me, that in this interesting but baffling case, there might well be a nigger in the woodpile. I turned the thought over in my mind and fastened upon a very minor but maybe a significant mystery. I wondered why the photographer had not kept his appointment to visit Hill House on the night of Miss Kempson-Conyers' birthday party.

The arrangement had been that Mr Nigel Kempson was to pick him up in the town at an appointed meeting-place at about eleven p.m. and convey him by car to the manor house. Apparently he did not turn up at the rendezvous and Mr Nigel, having waited for a considerable time, returned without him.

It seemed strange to me that a professional photographer, having contracted to take a number of pictures in the house of so wealthy a woman as Mrs Kempson, had not kept what promised to be a very lucrative assignment, so I decided to make some enquiries.

My problem, and that of the police, was that there was no apparent reason why the same person should have committed both the murders. Added to this was the mystery of there having been (it seemed) two Mr Wards, both false, and the strange fact that nobody could have known beforehand (again it seemed) that Miss Patterson would attend the party in place of her brother except the two Pattersons and their parents.

Apart from this, the absence of the photographer made him as much or as little of a suspect as anybody else, but, at any rate, he appeared to be a person whose movements should be more fully investigated.

As Mr Nigel had gone back to his London flat, I returned to Hill House and asked Mrs Kempson to repeat to me all that she could remember of the arrangements for the photographer's visit. She was only too anxious to find a scapegoat outside her own family, for she fully realised the implications suggested by the absence from the festivities of Mr and Mrs Conyers, herself and Mr Nigel at what must have been the time of Miss Patterson's death. She had previously done her best to impress upon me that Doctor Tassall was also out of her house at that time, and I knew that he had lied about his call to a maternity case. Perceiving my new drift, which might implicate the photographer, she proved more than willing to give me all the information she could.

She produced the photographer's typewritten reply. In it he regretted that a previous appointment would prevent him from attending at Hill House on the evening in question unless he could add a return taxi fare to his bill. To this Mrs Kempson had replied that, as the taxi would be kept waiting, presumably, while the photographs were being taken, and as it appeared that this would be a lengthy process, since her grand-daughter had arranged for a number of group photographs, as well as some individual portraits, to be taken, Mr Nigel Kempson would meet him outside the cinema in Broad Street, convey him to the house by car and take him back when the session was over.

This arrangement had been made over the telephone and the photographer had agreed to it, but there was nothing in writing.

I asked her whether the suggestion to pick up the photographer had come originally from Mr Nigel. She replied that it had not, and I wondered whether he had resented her high-handed assumption (as I saw it) that he would be willing to absent himself from the party for an hour or more merely to satisfy Miss Kempson-Conyers' whim and Mrs Kempson's wishes.

The photographer's address was at the top of his letter, so I went to see him.

I do not know why I had expected him to be a young man. He was nothing of the kind, but is, I should imagine, at least fifty years of age. When I announced that I had come from Mrs Kempson he looked hopeful and said, 'Oh, she's going to do something about it, then?'

About what?' I asked.

'Why, me hanging about in Broad Street best part of an hour,' he replied, 'waiting to be picked up.'

'But you were not there at the right time.'

'Who wasn't?'

'You weren't. Mr Nigel Kempson waited for you, but you did not appear.'

'Who didn't?'

'You didn't.'

'You've got it the wrong way round, I'm afraid, madam. It was Mr Kempson didn't show up, not me,' he said. 'I would have written to Mrs Kempson to claim something for my time and the loss to me of not taking the photographs, but I reckoned she had enough on her plate with that poor girl getting murdered and Mrs Kempson's name in the papers and everything, so I thought I'd bide my time before I put it to her that she'd let me down.'

'I think we had better get this quite clear,' I said to him. Well, there was nothing to shake his story. He produced Mrs Kempson's letter and a copy of his own reply...'I keep copies, madam, mine being a chancy business and people sometimes in no hurry to settle up, so I like to have a record of the whole transaction'...and he gave me the gist of the subsequent telephone conversation. He then said:

'Of course, that's the weak point, so far as I'm concerned, madam. I haven't anything in writing to say that Mr Nigel Kempson was to pick me up and nothing about the time or the place. I jotted them down, but that's not evidence, is it? And even if it was, I wouldn't have a case to take to court, I don't reckon, even if I was prepared to go as far as that, which, between ourselves, I would not be.'

'Just give me an account of what happened from the time you left your last appointment that evening and the time you decided that Mr Nigel Kempson was not going to put in an appearance,' I suggested.

The appointment, it appeared, had terminated at the Assembly Rooms in the Town Hall after he had taken photographs of the guests who attended a banquet there. He had taken three pictures in a matter of minutes. This was at half-past nine. From then until nearly ten o'clock, he and his assistant had been occupied in taking orders for copies of the photographs and had met with what he called 'about the usual run of luck' in selling the photographs later and in the matter of drinks.

They had then packed up their paraphernalia and he himself had crossed the road for another drink at the Goat and Grapes before that hostelry closed at ten-thirty, while his assistant had returned to the studio with the camera and so on. When the bar closed, the photographer, being known to the landlord as a personal friend, had been taken behind the bar to the back premises of the inn for a private drink which, incidentally, he would pay for on the morrow.

'It was to use up the half-hour before Mr Kempson was to pick me up,' he explained, 'but just in case he should be early, I went along to stand outside the cinema at ten to eleven, not to keep him waiting.'

'Ah, yes. You can prove this, of course; I said. He did not put up any pretence of not understanding me.

'You surely don't think I killed that poor young creature and that's why Mr Kempson didn't pick me up at eleven, do you?' he said. 'He never turned up, I tell you, and that's why I turned it in at midnight and went home, and pretty cheesed off I felt, I don't mind telling you. Well, I didn't think I ought to 'phone up at that time of night and the next day was Sunday and then, when I 'phoned on Monday morning, a policeman answered and told me to ring up later, as Mrs Kempson could not talk to anybody. Then, of course, it was in the local paper all about the murder, so I wouldn't bother her, like I said.'

'Yes, I see,' I said. 'Can you think of anybody who might have seen you standing outside the cinema waiting for Mr Nigel?'

'There were any number of people coming out of the cinema when it closed down at eleven. Some of them must have noticed me. Look here, are you to do with the police?'

'Sufficiently so for your purpose. I shall tell them about this interview and then they may contact you and make any enquiries they think fit.'

'You think I've been lying?' He could have sounded belligerent, but, as a matter of fact, he appeared to be alarmed. 'I assure you, madam, I've told you nothing but the truth. If Mr Kempson says he came to the cinema and didn't find me, he's the liar, not me. Hang it all, treat me fair! Which is more likely?'

'You have a point there, perhaps.'

'I never even knew the young girl.'

'Perhaps Mr Nigel is in a position to claim the same thing. However, it will be to your advantage to go to the police yourself and tell them what you have told me.'

'You don't mean I'm really suspected?' he said, looking even more alarmed.

'At the moment, neither less nor more than others,' I replied. His alarm had impressed me to some extent. I did not suspect him of murder. I did suspect that he had something to hide.

I went straight to the police station. The inspector was in his office dealing with various documents, but he received me courteously and asked what he could do.

'I want to know whether a telephone call came for Mrs Kempson while you were at Hill House on the Monday after Miss Patterson was murdered, Inspector.'

'Yes, there was a call.'

'Ah!'

'From the young lady's father.'

'Nobody else?'

'Nobody else. He was very distressed, of course, and asked what we wanted him to do. He said that his wife was in a state of collapse, but if he could be of any help he would come over. I advised him to stay put and we would let him know about the inquest, as his daughter would have to be identified formally.'

And you are positive that there was no other call for Mrs Kempson that day?'

'What is all this, ma'am?'

'Probably nothing of importance,' I said. 'I wondered whether the photographer had rung up to explain why he had not come to the house to take the pictures at the birthday party.'

'No, he didn't ring, ma'am.'

I could not understand why the photographer had told me such a lie. I went to the Town Hall. It is a pretentious but ugly building which mars an otherwise charming street. The porter on duty enquired my business in a civil manner, so I asked him whether he had been on duty at the banquet of which I mentioned the date. It appeared that he had.

'I believe some photographs were taken,' I said.

'While he was sober, lucky enough,' said the porter. 'When he left I had to help him down the steps and then blowed if he didn't go tacking away across the street to the Goat and Grapes. Good thing there wasn't no traffic about. I watched him across and I thinks to myself as he'll be lucky if Bill Ballock serves him, the state he's in when he leaves here. When the photographs and the orders was all took, I reckon they give him a skinful in the mayor's parlour, 'cos, when I see him off, happy wasn't the word for it. He could still stand on his feet, just about, but I reckon that was instink, not intention.'

I crossed the road to the Goat and Grapes. At that hour it was empty except for a pot-boy polishing glasses. I asked to speak to the landlord and a Dickensian character of jovial aspect appeared. He remembered the night in question perfectly well, but for reasons quite unconnected with the murder.

'I always do pretty well when there's a "do" on in the Town Hall,' he informed me. 'Some of 'em come in before it starts, so as to get themselves into the mood, like, and if I'm still open when it's over, some of 'em comes in for a night-cap, as you might say.'

I mentioned the photographer.

'I understand he belonged to the night-cap contingent,' I said.

'Then you understand wrong,' said the landlord promptly. 'He comes in here in a state which I should describe as unfortunate and I refused to serve him.'

'He did not get anything to drink here?'

'He did not, madam. Do you think I want to lose my licence? I told him I was shutting up shop and he'd best go home and sleep it off.'

'You did not take him behind your bar and minister to him in your back room?'

The landlord stared at me incredulously.

'Who's been telling you that tale?'

'It was rumoured. You deny it, then?'

'If you wasn't a lady I'd do more than deny it; I'd add a few rude words to make my meaning clear.'

'So what happened to him?'

'My pot-man found him laid out sleeping it off in the gents when he went to hose out on the Sunday morning, but whether he'd been there all night, well, that I couldn't undertake to say.'

Intriguing, don't you think, dear Sir Walter?

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

THE PENNY DROPS

As you will realise, dear Sir Walter, the result of my investigations provided us with four lines of enquiry, for, after my meeting with the photographer, the police and I were pursuing our ends in even closer association than before.

The situation which confronted us was not, as so often happens in cases of murder, the necessity to break down alibis, but to establish them. Among our suspects, as I saw it, four had to be cleared and one retained.

'Psychology first,' said the inspector. 'I'm a great believer in it since one of your lot, ma'am, if I may so refer to a body of learned ladies and gentlemen in whom, usually, our lot don't place much confidence, was able to clear my little girl of a charge of thieving from another child at her school. Not that I'm all that sold on it in a general way, you understand, because, as it seems to me, psychology is more concerned with finding excuses for the criminal than getting him committed on a charge.'

Having obtained carte blanche from him, I considered my suspects all over again. Two of them, the photographer and Mr Conyers, I decided to ignore for the time being. Neither was at all likely to have had a motive for killing Merle Patterson and the only possible reason which Mr Conyers could have had for murdering Ward was that he thought him a threat to little Lionel's inheritance. As, according to Mrs Kempson, the estate was more or less of a white elephant, this motive seemed inadequate. Lionel would get the money anyway.

I turned my attention again to Doctor Tassall. It seemed time to put the cards on the table. I sent a note to the surgery to ask him to spare a few minutes on his next round or as soon as was convenient, to pay a call on Mrs Landgrave.

That this was a deceitful move intending to disarm him I freely admit. However, if he was a murderer, the nicer scruples were out of place; if he was an innocent man he had nothing to fear or, at this late stage in the proceedings, nothing to hide from me. The mere fact that he was suspected-if he did not know it already-should be sufficient, I thought, to make him willing to talk.

From my window on to the street I saw him arrive. I opened the front door to him myself and led him into my sitting-room.

Are you the patient?' he enquired.

There is no patient for you, but possibly one for me,' I replied. He did not pretend to misunderstand me.

Any police hidden behind the arras?' he asked, with an attempt at flippancy which was bold but not convincing.

'No police, but I believe Mr Landgrave is within call.'

'Oh, yes. Bit of a bruiser, isn't he?'

'I believe he has the reputation of being a man of his hands.'

'I accept the hint. Well, if I'm the patient, what is your diagnosis?'

'I cannot make one until you have answered my questions.'

'Right. I haven't time for verbal sparring, so fire away, please. I've a number of calls to make.'

'It is about the one you didn't make that I should like to question you.'

'I don't have to incriminate myself, you know.'

'You could not do so at this particular interview, since there are no witnesses.'

'You don't think the police would accept your word against mine?'

'Not as proof positive. As a base for future enquiries I think they might. Now, Doctor Tassall, it ill becomes me, perhaps, to tell you that the best way you can help yourself is to tell the truth, but I believe that it would be in your own interests to do so. It was easy enough to find out that there is no such patient as Mrs Collins on your list.'

'Easy enough to find that out, yes. So what?'

'So I can think of various reasons why you left the birthday party so early that night.'

'Oh, yes? Are you going to tell me what they are?'

'Certainly, and leave you to indicate the right one.'

'And suppose I select the wrong one?'

'It will take me a little longer to find out which is the right one, that is all.'

'I see. Do you like answering riddles?'

'Propound one.'

'Try this, since you are trying to get me hanged. "There was a man made a thing, and he that made it did it bring, but he 'twas made for did not know whether 'twas a thing or no."'

I was familiar with the riddle, so I said:

'I believe you are optimistic. Are not convicted murderers buried coffinless and in quick-lime after the hanging? Let us give up these time-consuming jests. Here are your alternatives to Mrs Collins and her being brought to bed. Either you left the party in order to avoid Merle Patterson, or else you left the party and she followed you out of the house by mutual arrangement so that you could discuss your private affairs.'

'I've told you before! We no longer had private affairs to discuss.'

'Miss Patterson seems to have thought you had.'

'So you expect me to choose the second alternative and agree that Merle and I had arranged to meet outside the house that night!'

'It would be wise for you to admit it.'

'Why?'

'Because I am sure it is the truth.'

'Tell me why you think so.'

'I have two reasons. For one thing, you had told Miss Kempson-Conyers that you expected a call and would have to absent yourself at some point from the party in order to attend on Mrs Collins.'

'How does that prove anything?'

'Surely, that you knew (as Mrs Collins was a figment of your brain) you would need an excuse to get away from the party at some point and had prepared yourself with one which could not be gainsaid.'

'And your second point?'

'It depends upon the first. You knew that Miss Patterson had arranged with her brother that she should take his place. You had thought that she would still be in the car when you met and it upset the plan a little when the unsuspecting Mrs Kempson invited her into the house. You managed, I expect, to speak to Miss Patterson while Amabel and her grandmother were still occupied in greeting the guests who were continuing to arrive. Miss Patterson proposed a new plan, which was that, after the pretended call was supposed to have come through, she should go into the garden at the first opportunity and that you two should hold your conclave in her car, as you had arranged.'

'Well, all right, fair enough, so far. And then?'

'I think you had a genuine call, and that it came earlier than the bogus one you had planned. I also think it was one which you did not hesitate to answer, and that, in fact, you welcomed it. You were not looking forward to your interview with Miss Patterson. You knew she would be reproachful; you thought she might be angry and even tearful, so, although you were determined to return to the party in the hope of having a lovers' meeting, however short, with Amabel Kempson-Conyers, you left it late enough to feel certain that, by the time you got back, Miss Patterson would have taken her three companions back to London and you would be spared an embarrassing interview.'

'And so?'

'You came back to find that Merle Patterson had gone out into the grounds, as arranged, but had not come back. A search-party was organised, her body was found and there was no doubt that she had been murdered. In other words, she had kept the tryst which, because of circumstances unforeseen by you, but of which you were quick to take advantage, you had managed to avoid.'

'I didn't kill her. I swear I didn't. I mean, you don't kill girls because they are prepared to make nuisances of themselves.'

'No? Perhaps you are not as well acquainted with the records of criminal behaviour as I am. Girls and women have been murdered simply because they were in the way. Have you heard of Emily Kaye?-of Ellen Warder?-of Harriet Staunton?-of Mrs Armstrong?-of Belle Elmore, as Mrs Crippen called herself professionally? I could go on. Shall I do so?'

'But Merle wasn't in my way! I had finished with her and she knew it. I admit I was a bit of a heel where she was concerned. She told me so in letters, anyway. I also admit I never intended to meet her in the grounds that night. I had nothing to say to her. The call I was planning to receive was just a myth, as you say. I intended to leave the house and drive off. I usually ride a horse in the village, but I use Doctor Matters' car at times and always after dark. Anyway, any double-cross act I'd planned with Merle proved unnecessary. A genuine call came through and I made the most of it.'

'Ah, yes, the genuine call. Tell me about that.'

'It came from Doctor Matters. I shouldn't criticise him to outsiders, I suppose, but he really is the most frightful old ass and to my mind completely gaga. He rang up to say that as I'd borrowed the car I was to go at once to the Pratts' house-he gave me the address-and tell them he'd given a wrong prescription and that if they'd already been to the chemist with it, Mrs Pratt was on no account to touch the stuff, but to bring it to the surgery next morning.'

'And this errand took you out of the party at an early stage in the proceedings?'

'Yes. I went off at once, of course. You can't play about with dangerous drugs.'

'And you were absent for nearly four hours?'

'Well, not as long as that.'

'Doctor Tassall, I refuse to credit your story. For one thing, Doctor Matters does his own dispensing. He does not issue prescriptions to be handed in at chemists' shops. Furthermore, it could not possibly have taken you all that time to perform such an errand. Doctor Matters' practice would have to extend to the other side of the County if it had. For your own sake, tell me the truth. I will be plain with you. If I could believe that you had any reason for disposing of Mr Ward, I would subscribe to your immediate arrest, but, so far as I know, you had no motive for that. All the same, you did have a motive for murdering Miss Patterson and doctors have committed murder before this. Come, now. For all we know at present, there may be two murderers in this village and there is nothing, so far, to show that you are not one of them.'

He shrugged his shoulders and decided to make the best of it.

'Oh, well, if you must have it,' he said, 'as I say, I never intended to meet Merle for a showdown. It couldn't do any good. I'd arranged with one of the chaps at the medical school to call me. I'd bought those lizard costumes from him, so I knew he'd oblige me. I had a few dances with Amabel under the disapproving eye of Mrs Kempson, then the chap's call came through. It was an invitation to join a gang of students in a rather low pub in the town. We had a few drinks and then I went back to the chap's room with two or three of the others and we played cards and had a few more drinks until I realised that Merle must have given up and gone home. The Kempson and Conyers tribe would be in bed, I thought, and a clod aimed at Amabel's window would bring her to the front door.'

'Instead of which, you found yourself pulled in to assist in the search for Miss Patterson. I cannot understand why you did not come out with this story at the beginning. Surely you realised that it gave you an alibi for the time of Miss Patterson's death?'

'I didn't realise at first that I needed an alibi. I'd committed myself to this story about being called out to a maternity case and I thought Amabel and her people, especially Mrs Kempson, would take a very dim view if they knew I'd left the birthday party to go on a toot with the lads. I couldn't have let Amabel know, either, that I'd agreed to a tête-à-tête with Merle out in the grounds. You know what girls are. She'd have thought it was-she'd have thought I was double-crossing her, and that would have been the end of everything.'

I felt that I had the truth from him at last. It remained to check his alibi and this I have done. There is no doubt in my mind that, whatever happened in the case of Mr Ward, young Doctor Tassall had no part in the murder of Merle Patterson unless the medical evidence respecting the time of her death was hopelessly out.

This left me with one obvious suspect, but there were difficulties. Only if we could prove that Nigel Kempson had mistaken Merle Patterson for Lionel Kempson-Conyers did his guilt appear even possible, but it made the death of Mr Ward rather less unaccountable. However, we still had to find the reason, if there was one, for Nigel to want to kill either of them. In no way could he hope to inherit the Hill Manor estate, so it was not possible to determine how the child's death could benefit him. The same fact applied in the case of Mr Ward, even if Nigel had believed that the man who had been murdered was the rightful heir.

All the same, even though the photographer had proved a broken reed in that he had lied about waiting for Nigel to pick him up outside the cinema, it was necessary to reconsider Nigel's statement that he had arrived at the pick-up point and hung about there in his car for about an hour before returning to Hill House.

As in the case of Doctor Tassall, there was a time-lag to be taken into account. To pick up the photographer at eleven, Nigel would need to leave Hill House at least not later than ten-forty. At that time Mrs Kempson was in bed, her daughter and son-in-law had retired to their own quarters, Doctor Tassall had been called away and Merle Patterson was still in the house.

As (presumably) Nigel could not have known that Merle had made an appointment to meet Tassall out in the grounds, he could have mistaken her for Lionel and killed her when he met her on his return. If this had been the case, he might not have gone to the town at all, since, according to the medical evidence, Merle could not have died later than about eleven o'clock and it would have been impossible for him to have driven to town, waited for even the shortest time outside the cinema and returned to the grounds of the manor by eleven.

If he had not attempted to keep the appointment with the photographer, it was necessary to find out what he had been doing, since he had not actually come back into the house until well after midnight.

The obvious explanation was that he had been burying Mr Ward's body, but that brought me up against the brick wall which had been a so far insurmountable obstacle throughout the whole enquiry. If Nigel had buried Mr Ward, the inference needs must be that he had killed him. But why? Nobody except Mrs Kempson had anything to gain by Ward's death, and even her gain would only be the saving of a few miserable pounds a week which she could well spare. There seemed no sense in Mr Ward's death, and that, my dear Sir Walter, intrigued me vastly.

To whom, I asked myself for perhaps the hundredth time, was Mr Ward such a menace that, at whatever risk, he had to be removed? The only answer which has suggested itself so far is that he might have become a menace to the first Mr Ward, the mysterious figure who had appeared upon the Hill House scene five years earlier and then must have disappeared within a matter of days, only to be impersonated by the second (and subsequently murdered) Mr Ward.

I placed the matter before the inspector.

'We can be pretty certain Kempson did not show up outside the cinema that night,' he said.

'Upon the now completely false evidence of the photographer?'

'No. We've got two witnesses, quite unbiased, both of them. One is the commissionaire at the cinema who states he was on duty there until after the place closed down at eleven, and the other is our man on the beat. They both swear that no car was parked outside or even reasonably near the cinema up to eleven-fifteen that night. The commissionaire went off duty when the cinema closed down, but my chap was up and down all the time, on and off, until midnight, and there was no parked car. I took their statements separately and there's no doubt about it. Wherever Kempson went that night, he did not turn up outside that cinema.'

I went back to my notebooks, beginning with the first letter I had received from Mrs Kempson and continuing with all the jottings I had made subsequent to that. It was then that the truth not only dawned on me, but did so in a kind of sunburst. The identity of the first Mr Ward was no longer a mystery. Once I realised that, the rest of the puzzle fell into place as certainly as the apparently unpredictable ball at the roulette table falls into its mysteriously appointed compartment and stakes are won and lost at one and the same time. I was certain of the identity of the criminal and I did not think there would be much difficulty in proving it.

Mrs Kempson's first letter and later remarks were helpful up to a point. She was doubtful whether the man who had claimed to be her brother was, in fact, Ward, yet there was something about his voice which appeared to be familiar to her.

She was determined to secure the inheritance for her grandson, but she also had not quite a clear conscience with regard to Ward, even though he had declared himself an emulator of Esau and was prepared to forfeit his inheritance for a mess of pottage.

All the same, it has been shown, since the two murders, that both the Mr Wards were impostors and that the real Mr Ward died in America before he had a chance of claiming the Hill Manor estate.

Only two points still needed to be worked out, but I had considered them before and I felt that I had positive answers to both of them. There was the question of the time-lag once again. In the case of young Tassall and Nigel Kempson it was a matter of hours, hours which I felt I could now account for, but in the case of the first Mr Ward there was an interval of five years to be bridged.

There was also the question of the substitution of the first Mr Ward by the second Mr Ward, a change unsuspected by either Mrs Landgrave, who had never seen the first one, or Mrs Kempson who, by her own choice, had never set eyes on the second one while he was alive.

The explanations I could find to fit in with my theories were that, during the five years' time-lag, somebody had been making either overt or disguised attempts to get Mrs Kempson to change the terms of her will. The most likely person to have so employed his time was Nigel Kempson. With regard to the substitution, it seemed that it must have been necessary to have a Mr Ward at Mrs Landgrave's, since otherwise Mrs Kempson might find out that her monthly money orders were not being cashed. As for Mr Ward's lodgings, the Landgraves, as I summed them up, were certainly not the people to take money for a non-existent lodger.

The inference was that the first Mr Ward was known elsewhere and it was necessary for him to appear in his usual haunts, a thought which had occurred to me earlier, but not in connexion with Nigel.

* * *

Again I went over my notes. Then I turned up Mrs Kempson's letters to me, and there it all was. The voice she had heard before; the discussion she had had with Nigel and they agreed that Mr Ward should receive thirty thousand pounds at her death in consideration of his abandoning all claim to the estate; the substitution of another Mr Ward as Mrs Landgrave's lodger, since Nigel himself had a lucrative position and had to be in London most of his time; his mother an actress and his father possibly an actor, so that he was able to play the part of the first Mr Ward without arousing more than the dimmest of doubts in Mrs Kempson's mind; the untidy moustache; the pince-nez; most of all, the gloves.

This all seemed obvious enough, but it still did not account for the two murders. A prime factor, I decided, was the mental deterioration of the second Mr Ward. Nigel must have wondered whether there would come a point when this individual (probably an ex-criminal whom Nigel had promised to help) would give the game away. There was also a possibility that he had been in no wise as crazy as his conduct would suggest, but had tried his hand at a little mild blackmail, for, to some extent, Nigel must have been obliged to take him into his confidence.

This could explain the first murder, but it still did not account for the death of Merle Patterson. The reason for that remained speculative, but I thought I knew the answer.

The police were certain that the girl had not been killed down by the sheepwash where her body was found. Neither they nor I had ever really believed that, dressed as she was, she would have strayed so far from the house. There was, however, the distinct possibility that, believing Doctor Tassall to have been called away on a genuine case, she had gone as far as the lodge gates to meet him on his return.

There somebody had dragged her inside the deserted lodge and killed her. My theory was that this was because she had come upon Nigel humping the body of the second Mr Ward out of the lodge where he had hidden it after he had killed his understudy on the previous day, having first enticed him up to the house, on what pretext I cannot say.

Of course, all this was mere speculation, and the only way or proving it, it seemed to me, was to confront Nigel with such evidence as we had, accuse him to his face and find out whether he could refute the accusation. The reason for his lengthy absence from the birthday party was a factor to take into account. He had two dead bodies to dispose of. He transported both by car, I think. He was to have picked up the photographer in a car, you will remember. I think he drove first straight down Lovers' Lane and put the girl's body, with the fancy costume torn to pieces, beside the sheepwash in the hope that the gypsies would be credited with the crime, as, at the very beginning, one of them was-and indeed he might well have been convicted-but for the intervention of the two children and the evidence supplied by their uncle.

Then Nigel returned for Mr Ward's body. He knew where to hide it, for young Lionel Kempson-Conyers who, according to the Clifton children, 'always blabbed', could have told him about the grave-like hole in the floor of the ruined cottage. It was sheer bad luck-if one can call it bad luck when a murderer is hoist, so to speak, with his own petard-that the children should have had sufficient curiosity regarding the filled-in hole to get the poor village idiot to dig it out for them, and that Mrs Winter knew the sound of his car.

You may ask why, having, in his capacity as the first Mr Ward, assured himself of thirty thousand pounds under the terms of Mrs Kempson's will, Nigel did not add her murder to his tally. I think he had genuine feeling for her and was willing to wait for her death from natural causes. Because of the difference in their ages he probably thought that he would not have to wait very long. Like other murderers I have met, he was by no means altogether bad.

Of course, sooner or later he would still have had to dispose of the second Mr Ward had that unfortunate man remained sane, but I think he had planned to do that after Mrs Kempson's death. Then he would have presented himself to the lawyers in his disguise as the first Mr Ward and claimed his thirty thousand pounds.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

MARGARET AND KENNETH

So it was poor Nigel Kempson after all, although I do not know why I still think of him with compassion. He was a double murderer and he had killed an entirely innocent, although I think a very silly, lovesick young girl as well as the madman we knew as Mr Ward.

Mrs Lestrange Bradley (Dame Beatrice as she became later on) got our address from Aunt Kirstie and came to see us in our London home to tell us all about it. She said that our discovery of Mr Ward's body when Kenneth thought we were getting Peachy to dig for buried treasure had been of great help to the police, but that did not comfort us very much. The only good thing about it all, so far as I could see, was that they did not hang Nigel. He went shooting rabbits on Lye Hill and accidentally or purposely shot himself before he could be arrested. I think he realised that Mrs Bradley was getting at the truth.

I suppose thirty thousand pounds is a great deal of money, especially if you compare it with the five thousand which was all that Nigel stood to obtain in his own name under Mrs Kempson's will, but, on thinking it over, I do not really believe that the late Mr Kempson had made any stipulation as to how his wife was to leave the money when she died.

I think she believed that Nigel was Mr Kempson's own illegitimate son whom he had never had the courage to acknowledge and, although she loved Nigel in her possessive way, largely because she was so lonely with her husband dead and her only daughter abroad most of the time, I imagine that she resented and never forgave her husband's infidelity (if unfaithful he had been) and for that reason she refused to have Nigel legally adopted, which might have given him a title to the estate or, at any rate, a substantial share in the late Mr Kempson's fortune. Instead, he was to be left a beggarly five thousand pounds instead of the sum which no doubt he felt he had a right to expect.

For how long he had planned to impersonate Mrs Kempson's brother Ward it is impossible to say, but, of course, it could not have been before Mrs Kempson received the news of Ward's death.

So what Mrs Bradley calls 'the first Mr Ward' made his appearance and (possibly again to vent her spite against her dead husband, so strangely are people constituted) Mrs Kempson told Nigel that she was leaving her 'brother' thirty thousand pounds, little knowing that her beneficiary was the other party to the agreement.

It was the last holiday we ever spent in Hill village, for our grandfather died that winter, all the property was sold up and the aunts and Uncle Arthur moved away. However, we were given bicycles the following summer and father cycled with us to visit his relations in another part of Oxfordshire.

One day we decided to cycle to Hill on our own, but when we came to the culvert which led on to The Marsh, Kenneth said:

'I don't believe I want to go any further.'

'Well, let's spend our money at Mother Honour's,' I said, 'and then go back. Other people will be in Aunt Kirstie's and grandfather's, so it wouldn't be fun. Even the hermit's cottage isn't there any more. Look! Do you see? They've pulled it down. Do you believe there was ever any treasure hidden in it?'

'I did when I was younger,' said Kenneth.

END