“By God, you’re right, Sarge! Placing the boots so carefully—jokingly, almost—it wasn’t the killer ’avin’ a larf at our expense. He had to do it because their feet were different sizes. This poor chap isn’t our hero Captain Richard Dunne, everyone’s favourite tramp, at all. It’s someone else. Someone he’s met down in the graveyard or over the wall in Jude’s College grounds and decided to kill. Using the approved and taught commando silent killing technique. He decides to cover up the murder—for as long as he can, to allow himself chance to get away—by swapping clothes and identity with his own. He doesn’t mind ‘dying.’ If we fall for the story he’s built up for us, the blundering cops will take one look and say, ‘Dead vagrant. Drunk as a skunk. Another one.’ Without further enquiry, the corpse will be noted and dated by the coroner and shovelled into a pauper’s grave without a name. If it should be identified as ‘Old Dickie,’ well, that’s no problem. As a tramp, he’s ditched his identity years ago. He’ll just change his name again. Either way, he’s away free as a bird and no one’s looking for him.”

Back to practicalities, Thoday speculated: “So he left him wearing undergarments and suit that were unidentifiable and difficult to change in the dark on a corpse, then put his greatcoat on top. With everything taken from the pockets.”

“Except for the half crown, Sarge. He knew the police couldn’t just have him shovelled away as a vagrant if he had the price of a night’s lodging on him. Them’s the rules! He knows what we know of legal etiquette and left it there deliberately, I’d say. Why else pass up half a crown? It’s a goodly sum for a vagrant. No—Dickie Dunne wanted the body identified as Richard Dunne of Cambridge, logged and buried under that name.

“Then there’s the dining club invitation card. I wonder if he overlooked that or left it in the inside ticket pocket because he wanted some sharp chaps to find it and investigate? I’m seeing a pattern. But the really tricky part was the socks and shoes. He couldn’t expect to pass off as a man of the roads a corpse with manicured, bunion-free feet with—let’s guess—fine wool socks and Trickers handmade half brogues that fitted beautifully. Shoes bearing the maker’s individual last number, which would establish with one phone call the customer’s name. Off come socks and shoes and he replaces them with his own disreputable ones. Except that he puts the worn right sock on the left foot. And—more important—he can’t put the shoes on because they won’t fit!”

“The assistant and I struggled. Couldn’t be done, sir.”