How old was Mr Pyke Period? Fifty-eight? Over sixty? Difficult to say. Alleyn started his search at the first entry in 1895. In that year the late Mr Forsdyke was already at the helm and although presumably not much over thirty, pretty far advanced in absence of mind. There was every sort of mistake and erasure, Mr Forsdyke madly representing himself by turns as Officiating Priest, Infant, Godmother, and in one entry as Abode. These slips were sometimes corrected by himself, sometimes by another person and sometimes not at all. In several places, the sponsors appeared under Quality, Trade or Profession, in others they were crammed in with the parents. In one respect, however, all was consistency. Where a male Pyke was in question the Quality was invariably Gentleman.

At the bottom of a particularly wild page in the year 1897, Alleyn found what he wanted. Here on the 7th of May (altered to the 5th) was baptized Frances Ann Patricia, daughter of Alfred Molyneux Piers Period and Lady Frances Mary Julia Period née Pyke, with a huddle of amended sponsors.

In another hand, crammed in under Frances Ann Patricia, a second infant had been entered: Percival Pyke. Brackets had been added, enclosing the word ‘twins’.

It would seem that on the occasion of his baptism, Mr Pyke Period had fallen a victim to the rector’s peculiarity and had been temporarily neglected for his twin sister who, Alleyn remembered from her headstone, had died in infancy.

He spent a long time over this additional entry, using a strong pocket lens. He would have been very glad to remove the page and give it the full laboratory treatment. As it was he could see that a fine-pointed steel nib had been used and he noted that such another nib was rusting in the pen on the desk which also carried an old-fashioned inkpot. The writing was in a copperplate style, without character and rather laborious.

Praying that Mrs Nicholls was engaged in further activities in the vestry, Alleyn slipped out to the car and took a small phial from his homicide kit. Back at the font and hearing Mrs Nicholls, who was an insecure mezzo, distantly proclaiming that she ploughed the fields and scattered, he let fall a drop from the phial on the relevant spot. The result was not as conclusive as the laboratory test would have been but he would have taken long odds that the addition had been made at a different time from the main entry. Trusting that if anybody looked at this page they would conclude that some sentimentalist had let fall a tear over the infant in question, Alleyn shut the register.

The rector’s wife returned without her apron and with her hat adjusted. ‘Any luck?’ she asked.