‘It’s me, Jo,’ Tillottson shouted through the keyhole. ‘Tillottson. Police. Spare us a moment, will you?’

‘Who?’

‘Tillottson: Toll’ark Police.’

Silence. A light was turned on somewhere behind the dirty window. They heard shuffling steps and the elaborate unchaining and unbolting of the door which was finally dragged open with a screech to reveal a small, dirty man wearing pyjamas and an unspeakable overcoat.

‘What’s it all about?’ he complained. ‘I’m going to bed. What’s the idea?’

‘We won’t keep you, Jo. If we can just come in for half a sec.’

He muttered and stood aside. ‘In there, then,’ he said and dragged and banged the door shut. ‘In the shop.’

They walked into what passed for a shop: a low room crammed to its ceiling and so ill-lit that nothing came out into the open or declared itself in its character of table, hat-rack or mouldering chair. Rather, everything lurked in menacing anonymity and it really was going too far in the macabre for Jno. Bagg to suspend a doll from one of the rafters by a cord round its broken neck.

‘This,’ said Mr Tillottson, ‘is Superintendent Alleyn of the CID, Jo. He wonders if you can help him.’

“Ere,’ said Mr Bagg, ‘that’s a type of remark I never expected to have thrown at me on me own premises. Help the police. We all know what that one leads to.’

‘No, you don’t, Jo. Listen, Jo—’

Alleyn intervened. ‘Mr Bagg,’ he said, ‘you can take my word for it there is no question of anything being held against you in any way whatever. I’ll come to the point at once. We are anxious to trace the origin of a picture which was sold by you yesterday to an American lady and her brother. We have reason to believe—’

‘Don’t you start making out I’m a fence. Don’t you come at that one, mister. Me! A fence—!’

‘I don’t for one moment suggest you’re anything of the sort. Do pay attention like a good chap. I have reason to believe that this picture may have been dumped on your premises and I want to find out if that could be so.’

‘Dumped! You joking?’

‘Not at all. Now, listen. The picture, as you will remember, was in a bundle of old prints and scraps and the lady found it when she opened the door of a cupboard in your yard. The bundle was rolled up and tied with string and very dirty. It looked as if it hadn’t been touched for donkey’s years. You told the lady you didn’t know you had it and you sold it to her unexamined for ten bob and nobody’s complaining or blaming you or suspecting you of anything.’

‘Are you telling me,’ Mr Bagg said with a change of manner, ‘that she struck it lucky? Is that the lay?’