They lunched at the village pub. The whole place was alive with trippers. The sun glared down, the air was degraded by transistors and the ground by litter. Groups of sightseers in holiday garments crowded the foreshore, eating, drinking and pointing out the Island to each other. The tide was full. The hotel launch and a number of dinghies plied to and fro and their occupants stared up at the enclosure. It was obvious that the murder of Miss Cost was now common knowledge.

The enclosure itself was not fully visible from the village, being masked by an arm of Fisherman’s Bay, but two constables could be seen on the upper pathway. Visitors returning from the Island told each other and anybody that cared to listen, that you couldn’t get anywhere near the Spring. ‘There’s nothing to see,’ they said. ‘The coppers have got it locked up. You wouldn’t know.’

When they had eaten a flaccid lunch they called on the nearest JP and picked up a search-warrant for Wally’s Cottage. They went on to the station where Alleyn collected a short piece of the trip-wire. It was agreed that he would return to The Boy-and-Lobster. Coombe was to remain at the station, relieving his one spare constable, until the Yard men arrived. He would then telephone Alleyn at The Boy-and-Lobster. Pender would remain on duty at Miss Cost’s shop.

Coombe said: ‘It’s an unusual business, this. You finding the body and then this gap before your chaps come in.’

‘I hope you’ll still be on tap, but I do realize it’s taking more time than you can spare.’

‘Well, you know how it is.’ He waited for a moment and then said: ‘I appreciate your reluctance to form a theory too soon. I mean, it’s what we all know. You can’t. But as I’m pulling out I can’t help saying it looks a sure thing to me. Here’s this dopey kid as good as letting on he pitched in with the stones. There’s more than a hint that his old man was behind it and a damn’ good indication that he set the trip-wire. The kid says Miss Pride came back and there’s every likelihood he mistook Miss Cost for her. I reckon he’d let himself into the enclosure and was up by the boulder. He looked down and saw the umbrella below and let fly at it. I mean: well, it hangs together, doesn’t it?’

‘Who do you think planted the figurine in Miss Pride’s sitting-room and sent her the anonymous message and rang her up?’

‘Well, she reckons Miss Cost.’

‘So Miss Cost’s death was the end product of the whole series? Laid on, you might say, by herself?’

‘In a sense. Yes.’