‘Thank you,’ Alleyn said. ‘Yes, I think so. I find these old registers quite fascinating. The same names recurring through the years: it gives one such a feeling of continuity: the quiet life of the countryside. You seem to have had a steady progression of Pykes.’

‘One of the oldest families, they were,’ said the rector’s wife. ‘Great people in their day by all accounts.’

‘Have they disappeared?’

‘Oh, yes. A long time ago. I think their manor house was burnt down in Victorian times and I suppose they moved away. At all events the family died out. There’s a Mr Period over at Little Codling, who I believe was related, but I’ve been told he’s the last. Rather sad.’

‘Yes, indeed,’ Alleyn said.

He thanked her again and said he was sorry to have bothered her.

‘No bother to me,’ she said. ‘As a matter of fact we had someone else in, searching the register, a few weeks ago. A lawyer I think he was. Something to do with a client, I dare say.’

‘Really? I wonder,’ Alleyn improvised, ‘if it was my cousin.’ He summoned the memory of Mr Cartell, dreadfully blurred with mud. ‘Elderly? Slight? Baldish, with a big nose? Rather pedantic old chap?’

‘I believe he was. Yes, that exactly describes him. Fancy!’

‘He’s stolen a march on me,’ Alleyn said. ‘We’re amusing ourselves hunting up the family curiosities.’ He put something in the church maintenance box and took his leave. As he left the church a deafening rumpus in the lane announced the approach of an antique motor-car. It slowed down. The driver looked with great interest at Alleyn and the police car. He then accelerated and rattled off down the lane. It was Mr Copper in the Bloodbath.

II

‘If there’s one thing I fancy more than another, Mrs Mitchell,’ said Inspector Fox laying down his knife and fork, ‘it’s a cut of cold lamb, potato salad and a taste of cucumber relish. If I may say so, your cucumber relish is something particular. I’m very much obliged to you. Delicious.’

‘Welcome, I’m sure,’ said Mrs Mitchell. ‘I’ve got a nephew in the Force, Mr Fox, and from what he says it’s the irregular meals that tells in the end. Worse than the feet even, my nephew says, and his are a treat, believe you me. Soft corns! Well! Like red-hot coals, my nephew says.’

Alfred cleared his throat. ‘Occupational disabilities!’ he generalized. ‘They happen to the best of us, Mrs M.’

‘That’s right. Look at my varicose veins. I don’t mean literally,’ Mrs Mitchell added with a jolly laugh, in which Fox joined.

‘Well, now,’ he said, ‘I mustn’t stay here gossiping all the afternoon or I’ll have the superintendent on my tracks.’