Hubbard said only, “I wouldn’t joke about that, if I were you.”

“He was protected by Bowles. If I’d been tempted to kill the man, I’d have done it in London and put his body into the river somewhere east of The Poole. By the time they’d fished him out, there would be no way of knowing how he died, where he died, or by whose hand. They would be lucky to know who he was. I might as well have hung a placard around his neck with my initials on it, leaving him in that net shop. I’m not that much of a fool. And I have no wish to hang.”

“Then who met him outside the churchyard and lured him into a motorcar? Assuming, that is, Mrs. Farrell-Smith is remotely telling the truth.”

“Who found the body?”

“Fishermen coming for their nets. Must have scared them out of ten years’ growth, I should think. Why the hell are they so tall and narrow, these net shops?”

“A blow to the tax man, I’m told. When the town tried to levy new taxes on building footage here, the fishermen looked at their long drying sheds and thought, why not build them vertically? They did, the taxes were eventually revoked, but the sheds stayed. They must burn from time to time or fall over in a gale, but the fishermen thumbed their noses at the authorities.”

“You haven’t answered my question about the motorcar,” Hubbard pointed out.

“If it’s true, if Mickelson was met by someone, then the killer came looking for him.” He gestured toward the dark red bonnet of his motorcar. “In the dark that could be red. Or green. Or even blue or black. She saw the shape of a touring car, not the color. Or possibly she saw the two men talking, and invented the motorcar to throw suspicion in another direction.”

“Why should she do that?”

“She could have thought it was Daniel Pierce. She’s been waiting here for him to return since before the war. And he did come home, to stay in Eastfield only a matter of a few weeks.”

“She’s in love with him?” Hubbard asked.

“I don’t know,” Rutledge said, “whether she wants to have him or kill him. It depends on whether or not she killed her husband for him.”

“Quite,” Hubbard said as Rutledge turned the motorcar and drove out of Hastings. As they climbed toward Eastfield, he added, “But Mrs. Farrell-Smith is not our business at the moment. Are you certain these killings aren’t war related?”

“I’m sure of nothing. Someone knows the answer—but that someone may not realize the importance of it. Whatever happened, it appears not to have made a deep impression on the victims of these murders. That makes it all the more personal to the murderer.”