‘Ah! With some it takes the form of religious activities. Others go all out for dumb animals. Mrs Nankivell herself, although a very level-headed lady, worked it off in cats which have in the course of nature simmered down to two. Neuters, both. But with Miss Cost, not to put too fine a point on it, with Miss Cost, it was a matter of her female urges.’

‘Sex?’

‘She spotted it everywhere,’ Mr Nankivell exclaimed. ‘Up hill and down dell, particularly the latter. Did I know what went on in the bay of an evening? Was I aware of the opportunities afforded by open dinghies? Didn’t we ought to install more lights along the front? And when it came to the hills round about the Spring she was a tiger. Alf Coombe got it. The Rector got it, the doctor got it and I came in for it, hot and strong, continuous. She was a masterpiece.’

Alleyn ventured a sympathetic laugh.

‘You may say so, but beyond a joke nevertheless. And that’s not the whole story. The truth of the matter is, and I tell you this, sir, in the strictest confidence, the silly female was – dear me, how can I put it? – she was chewed-up by the very fury she come down so hard upon. Now, that’s a fact and well-known to all and sundry. She was a manhunter, was poor Elspeth Cost. In her quiet, mousy sort of fashion, she raged to and fro seeking whom she might devour. Which was not many.’

‘Any success?’

The Mayor, to Alleyn’s infinite regret, pulled himself up. ‘Well, now,’ he said. ‘That’d be talking. That’d be exceeding, sir.’

‘I can assure you that if it has no bearing on the case, I shall forget it. I’m sure, Mr Mayor, you would prefer me to discuss these, quite possibly irrelevant matters with you, rather than make widespread inquiries through the village. We both know, don’t we, that local gossip can be disastrously unreliable?’

Mr Nankivell thought this over. ‘True as fate,’ he said at last. ‘Though I’m in no position myself to speak as to facts and don’t fancy giving an impression that may mislead you. I don’t fancy that, at all.’

This seemed to Alleyn to be an honest scruple and he said warmly: ‘I think I can promise you that I shan’t jump to conclusions.’