“Yesterday evening you and your friend were ringing waders on the shore?”

“Yes. As the tide comes in, the waders come in to roost. We put a four-panel, sixty-foot net on the strip of sand at the north end. We did quite well.”

“So you have different-sized nets to catch different birds.”

“Yes. That’s right.”

“I understand that when you were looking for a net, you found one that you couldn’t use, because it had a missing guy. Can I take it that it was one of the kind that you would use for waders?”

“Yes. Sixty foot long, with four gathered shelves to catch the birds in.”

“And this net, the one with the missing guy … Did you get the impression that it had been put away as you found it, or had someone rifled through it, to pull out the rope? Just a minute, how are the nets stored?”

“In nylon bags in the cupboard over there.”

Connibear pulled open the heavy wooden door of a built-in cupboard. About a dozen nylon bags, the sort used for carrying small tents, were piled on the floor. Many bamboo and metal mist-net poles were leaning against the wall at the back of the cupboard. Other pieces of ringing equipment and bird bags were piled on a shelf to one side, and hanging on a nail were several strands of nylon rope of different lengths.

“Why not just take a piece of rope from there?” Savage muttered to himself. “Why bother to open the nets?”

Nick Mardle seemed to be trying to remember how he had found the incomplete net.

“I think that it had been put away without the guy,” he said. “The bag was completely closed and the drawstring at the top pulled tight, but the net hadn’t been properly folded, just roughly rolled up as if someone had put it away very quickly.”

“Do you know when that particular net was last used?”

“No. It would have been some time in the last two months. The waders don’t come in until July. Unless of course it was put away like that last season. I know that John has caught some big numbers of waders—redshank and knot—over the summer. Liz helps him a lot with the nets, and Miss Carson potters around presiding over the proceedings if she’s here. On very warm evenings it has been known for Doctor Derbyshire to ring a few birds—as long as someone else is around to identify them, and age and sex them.”

“I see.” Through habit, Savage was careful to conceal his disappointment. He turned back to Nick Mardle.

“Can you describe exactly what you did yesterday evening?”

Savage listened to the now familiar story of Charlie’s revelation at the supper table.

“Did you go out with your friend immediately after supper?”

“Not immediately. Mark’s a gentleman. He went to help Liz with the washing up. I was feeling a bit shattered.”

He looked up at Savage. “ I like it here,” he said simply. “ I couldn’t imagine not being able to come to the observatory.”