Hugh thought this most interesting. He had done a bit of carpentry himself until Cecily had stopped it on the ground that she needed his workshop for her groups. That had been in the days when she was into Gestalt. Hugh preferred not to think about them. He had a look at Prendergast (‘This seat was placed here by the Hon. Clara Prendergast that the weary might find rest’) and was about to ask Cottle if this one was oak or teak, when Cecily said: ‘Where did he get the cyanide?’

‘Moore?’ said Cottle. ‘It was never actually proved that he did get it. He said they kept some in their garden shed for killing wasps and his wife had taken it herself. In point of fact, Mrs Moore had written to her sister, saying her life wasn’t worth living and she wanted to put an end to it. But this gardener chappie said he’d thrown the wasp killing stuff away a year before.’

‘It must have come from somewhere,’ said Cecily in such a hectoring tone and looking so belligerent that Hugh felt even more sympathy for Rupert Moore.

Cottle didn’t seem to mind the tone or the look. ‘Moore had been to several chemists’ shops in the area, though not actually in Northwold, and tried to buy cyanide, ostensibly for killing wasps. No chemist admitted to having let him have it. There was one in Tarrington, up the coast here, who sold him another kind of vespicide that contained no cyanide and got him to sign the poison book. Dear Cecily, since you’re so interested, why don’t you read up the case in the library? Perhaps I might have the pleasure of taking you there tomorrow?’

The offer was accepted with enthusiasm. They all went into the Cross Keys where Hugh bought three rounds of drinks and Arnold Cottle bought none, having failed to bring his wallet with him. Cecily fastened on to the barman and elicited from him that the old woman who always sat on the Rupert Moore seat was called Mrs Jones, that she had come to Northwold the year before from Ipswich and was of Suffolk, though not Northwold, origins.

‘Why does she always sit there?’

‘Ask me another,’ said the barman, presumably meaning this rejoinder rhetorically, which was not the way Cecily took it.

‘What’s so fascinating about that seat?’

‘It seems to fascinate you,’ said Hugh. ‘Can’t you give it a rest? The whole thing’s been over and done with for going on fifty years.’

Cecily said, ‘There’s nothing else to do in this damned place,’ which displeased the barman so much that he moved off in a huff. ‘I’ve got a very active brain, Hugh. You ought to know that by now. I’m afraid I’m not content to fuddle it with drink or spend ten hours pulling one poor little fish out of the sea.’

The library visit, from which Hugh was excused, took place. But books having been secured, a journey had to be made to the house in which Rupert Moore had lived with his wife and painted his pictures and where the crime had been committed. Arnold Cottle seemed delighted at the prospect, especially as the excursion, at Cecily’s suggestion, was to include lunch. Hugh had to go because Cecily couldn’t drive and he wasn’t going to lend his car to Cottle.