‘I am not going to arrest you at this juncture,’ Alleyn said, ‘but I think it right to warn you that you are in a serious position. It is quite certain that the wire which, two days ago, was stretched across the way up to the shelf above the Spring, has been cut from this line. Photography and accurate measurements of the strands will prove it. Is there anything you want to say?’

Trehern’s jaw worked convulsively as if he were chewing gum. He made a hoarse indeterminate sound in his throat: like a nervous dog, Alleyn thought. At last he said: ‘Who-sumdever done them tricks was having no more than a bit of fun. Boy-fashion. No harm in it.’

‘You think not?’

‘If it was my Wal, I’ll have the hide off of him.’

‘I shouldn’t go in for any more violence if I were you, Mr Trehern. And Wally didn’t rig the trip-wire. It was done by a man who knows how to use his hands and it was done with a length of your clothes-line which you’ve tried to conceal. Will you make a statement about that? You are not compelled to do so. You must use your own judgment. ’

‘A statement! And be took down in writing? Not such a damned fool. Lookie-yurr! What’s these silly larks to do with Elspeth Cost? It’s her that’s laying cold, be’ant it? Not t’other old besom.’

‘Of course,’ Alleyn said, swallowing the epithet. After all, he’d thrown one or two himself, at Miss Emily. ‘So you don’t think,’ he said, ‘that Miss Cost was mistaken for Miss Pride?’

‘I do not, mister. Contrariwise. I reckon one female done it on t’other.’

‘What were you doing at half past seven this morning?’

‘Asleep in my bed.’

‘When did you wake?’

‘How do I know when I woke? Hold on, though.’

‘Yes?’

‘Yes, b’God!’ Trehern said slowly. ‘Give a chap time to think, will you? I disremembered but it’s come back, like. I heered the lad, banging and hooting about the place. Woke me up, did young Wal, and I hollered out to him to shut his noise. He takes them fits of screeching. Por lil’ chap.’ Trehern added with a belated show of parental concern. ‘Gawd knows why, but he does. I look at the clock and it’s five past eight. I rouse up my old woman which is a masterpiece of a job she being a mortal heavy slumberer, and tell ‘er to wet a pot of tea. Nothing come of it. She sunk back in her beastly oblivyan. So I uprose myself and put the kettle on and took a look at the weather which were mucky.’

‘Was Wally still in the house?’

‘So ‘e were, then, singing to hisself after his simple fashion and setting in a corner.’

‘Did you see anybody about when you looked out of doors?’