As George walked back to the Windmill he devised a plan.

Ella had opened all the windows and the door of the snack bar, but inside it was hot and steaming. A group of young birdwatchers stood laughing around the blackboard. George took Ella into the kitchen and spoke to her. When they returned her eyes were gleaming with excitement. She was singing loudly and tunefully.

George joined the lads and they became quieter, respectful.

“Anything about?” he asked.

A large, unkempt boy with painful acne shock his head.

“I suppose it’s getting a bit late to expect much now.”

George grinned: “ I think that the middle of June is a good time for a real rarity, for something really special.”

He looked at the debris of cameras, telescopes and binoculars on the tables. Without exception all the telescopes were short, fixed-focus models.

“Do you know if anyone has had a ‘scope repaired lately?” he asked generally. “Mine seems to be out of alignment and I wasn’t sure where to get it mended.”

There was a lot of advice about where best to have optical equipment repaired, but no useful information.

As he left he called to Ella: “Molly and I will be spending tonight at the White Lodge. Let us know if anything turns up.”

From the hotel George phoned the police station. It was an embarrassing phone call and he nearly lost his temper several times. He spoke first with a polite, rather slow-witted sergeant and then to an arrogant detective who, but for his prejudices, would have been reasonably intelligent. George, ignoring the man’s sneers about amateurs and the Home Office, explained his interest in the case.

He tried to explain that he had received some information which he was certain would assist the police in their inquiries.

The news about the telescope and its description seemed at last to force the detective to take George seriously. But when he asked where this witness might be questioned, and George gave the address of the local psychiatric hospital, he laughed out loud. He made no pretence of accepting George’s story. George had been talking to a loony. A loony might be a murderer. In fact he could tell George in confidence that their main suspect for this murder was a loony—Terry Biddle who had disappeared from the village—but no way could a loony be considered a reliable witness. With a great gesture of generosity, the detective agreed to send a constable out to the mental hospital some time the next day to talk to Mr. Cranshaw but made it clear that he would prefer to concentrate his efforts on finding Terry Biddle. Finally, he said that while a telescope was a possible murder weapon, the only forensic evidence was that it was a smooth cylindrical object. George just restained himself from shouting that he had seen a copy of the police report, and the detective rang off.

That night George and Molly had a quiet meal in the hotel restaurant. Each was preoccupied. George was considering the details of his plan, not allowing himself to consider the final outcome. Molly was thinking of Bernard Cranshaw, and wondering how the thing would end. When they did speak the conversation seemed hushed, intimate, because outside, even with the thick curtains drawn, they could hear the sound of rain and thunder. Later the electricity supply failed and the dining room was lit only by candles and the flashes of lightning.