The full, unbridled mouth so much at variance with the rest of her face, moved as if to speak, but, as in a badly-synchronized sound-film, her voice failed. Then she said: ‘Naturally. It’s a terrible thing to have happened, isn’t it?’

‘You were fond of Miss Cost?’

Something in her look reminded him, fantastically, of the strange veiling of a bird’s eyes. Hers were heavy-lidded and she had closed them for a second. ‘Not particularly,’ she said. ‘We had nothing –’ She stopped, unaccountably.

‘Nothing in common?’

She nodded. Her hands moved but she looked at them and refolded them in her lap.

‘Had she made enemies?’

‘I don’t know of any,’ she said at once as if she had anticipated the question. ‘I know very little about her.’

Alleyn asked her if she subscribed to the theory of mistaken identity and she said that she did. She was emphatic about this and seemed relieved when he spoke of it. She was, she said, forced to think that it might have been Wally.

‘Excited, originally, by Miss Cost herself?’

‘I think it’s possible. She was – It doesn’t matter.’

‘Inclined to be vindictive?’

She didn’t answer.

‘I’m afraid,’ Alleyn said, ‘that in these cases one can’t always avoid speaking ill of the dead. I did rather gather from something in Mrs Carstairs’ manner – ’

‘Dulcie Carstairs!’ she exclaimed, spontaneously and with animation. ‘She never says anything unkind about anybody.’

‘I’m sure she doesn’t. It was just that – well, I thought she was rather desperately determined not to do so in this case.’

She gave him a faint smile. It transfigured her face.

‘Dear Dulcie,’ she murmured.

‘She and the Rector are horrified, of course. They struck me as being such a completely unworldly pair, those two.’

‘Did they? You were right. They are.’

‘I mean – not only about Miss Cost but about the whole business of the Spring being more or less discredited by the present owner. The events of the last two years must have made a great difference to them, I suppose.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Enormous.’

‘Were they very hard up before?’

‘O yes. It was a dreadfully poor parish. The stipend was the least that’s given, I believe, and they’d no private means. We were all so sorry about it. Their clothes! She’s nice-looking but she needs careful dressing,’ said Mrs Barrimore with all the unconscious arrogance of a woman who would look lovely in a sack. ‘Of course everyone did what they could. I don’t think she ever bought anything for herself.’

‘She looked quite nice this morning, I thought.’

‘Did she?’ For the first time, Margaret Barrimore spoke as if there was some kind of rapprochement between them. ‘I thought men never noticed women’s clothes,’ she said.

‘Do you bet me I can’t tell you what you wore yesterday at the Spring?’

‘Well?’