‘Not yet. It’s a coal range, though.’

‘Damn.’

They worked on in silence. Bailey reported a good set of impressions from a tumbler by the bed and Thompson, relieved of the switchboard, photographed them. Fox put on his mackintosh and retired with a torch to an outhouse, admitting, briefly, the cold and uproar of the storm. After an interval he returned, bland with success, and bearing a coal-grimed, wet, crumpled and scorched fragment of newsprint.

‘This might be something,’ he said and laid it out for Alleyn’s inspection.

It was part of a sheet from the local paper from which a narrow strip had been cleanly excised. The remainder of a headline read: ‘ – to Well-known Beauty Spot’ and underneath: ‘The Natural Amenities Association. At a meeting held at Dunlowman on Wednesday it was resolved to lodge a protest at the threat to Hatcherds Common where it is proposed to build –’

‘That’s it, I’m sure,’ Alleyn said. ‘Same type. The original messages are in my desk, blast it, but one of them reads “Threat” (in these capitals) “to close You are warned”: a good enough indication that she was responsible. Any more?’

‘No. This was in the ash-bin. Fallen into the grate, most likely, when she burnt the lot. I don’t think there’s anything else but I’ll take another look by daylight. She’s got a bit of a darkroom rigged up out there. Quite well-equipped, too, by the look of it.’

‘Has she now? Like to take a slant at it, Thompson?’

Thompson went out and presently returned to say it was indeed a handy little job of a place and he wouldn’t mind using it. ‘I’ve got that stuff we shot up at the Spring,’ he said. ‘How about it, sir?’

‘I don’t see why not. Away you go. Good. Fox, you might penetrate to the bedchamber. I can’t find her blasted diary anywhere.’

Fox retired to the bedroom. Pender came back and said it was rougher than ever out of doors and he didn’t see himself getting back to the village. Would it be all right if he spent the rest of the night on Miss Cost’s bed? ‘When vacant, in a manner of speaking,’ he added, being aware of Fox’s activities. He emerged from a pitchpine wardrobe, obviously scandalized by Sergeant Pender’s unconventional approach, but Alleyn said he saw nothing against the suggestion and set Pender to tend the switchboard and help Thompson.