‘I’m sorry, Mrs Trehern,’ Jenny said. ‘We made a mistake.’

Trehern had come out through a back door. ‘Get in, woman,’ he said. ‘Get in.’ He took his wife by her arm and shoved her back into the house. ‘There’s the gate,’ he said to Alleyn. ‘Over yon.’

Alleyn had wandered to the clothes-line. A surplus length dangled from the pole. It had been recently cut.

‘I wonder,’ he said, ‘if you could spare me a yard of this. The bumper-bar on my car’s loose.’

‘Be’ant none to spare. Us needs it. Rotten anyways and no good to you. There’s the gate.’

‘Thank you,’ Alleyn said and they went out.

‘Was it the same as the trip-wire?’ he asked Coombe.

‘Certainly was: but I reckon they all use it.’

‘It’s old but it’s been newly cut. Have you kept the trip-wire?’

‘Yes.’

‘How was it fastened?’

‘With iron pegs. They use them when they dry out their nets.’

‘Well, let’s move on, shall we?’

Patrick was sitting in a dinghy alongside the jetty, looking aloof and disinterested. Wally made up to a new pair of sightseers.

‘That was very nice of you,’ Alleyn said to Jenny. ‘And I’m more than obliged.’

‘I hated it. Mr Alleyn, he really isn’t responsible. You can see what he’s like.’

‘Do you think he threw the stones at Miss Emily the other night?’

She said, very unhappily: ‘Yes.’

‘So do I.’

‘But nothing else. I’m sure: nothing more than that.’

‘You may be right. I’d be very grateful, by the way, if you’d keep the whole affair under your hat. Will you do that?’

‘Yes,’ she said slowly. ‘All right. Yes, of course, if you say so.’

‘Thank you very much. One other thing. Have you any idea who the Green Lady could have been?’

Jenny looked startled. ‘No, I haven’t. Somehow or another I’ve sort of forgotten to wonder. She may not have been real at all.’

‘What did he say about her?’

‘Only that she was very pretty and her hair shone in the sun. And that she said his warts would be all gone.’

‘Nothing else?’

‘No – nothing.’

‘Has he got that sort of imagination – to invent her?’

Jenny said slowly: ‘I don’t think he has.’

‘I don’t think so either.’

‘Not only that,’ Jenny said. ‘He’s an extraordinarily truthful little boy. He never tells lies – never.’

‘That’s an extremely valuable piece of information,’ Alleyn said. ‘Now go and placate your young man.’

‘I’ll be blowed if I do. He can jolly well come off it,’ she rejoined but Alleyn thought she was not altogether displeased with Patrick. He watched her climb down into the dinghy. It ducked and bobbed towards the far point of the bay. She looked up and waved to him. Her tawny hair, shone in the bright sunshine.