Redfyre peered with interest at the body revealed. “Good suit. Dark blue, loose weave, summer weight. Hardly worn. Sort of thing you’d buy for a wedding or a funeral and put on once. You can get them by the dozen on the racks in the secondhand shops down Mill Road in April when the maids have finished spring cleaning. Clean shirt. Tie slightly out of kilter owing to the murdering hands, which made those weals on his throat, would you say?” He paused for a moment, head cocked to one side. “The tie, Inspector? You’re a Cambridge man . . . Anything strike you as odd?”

“Good Lord! It’s a Girton College tie. I haven’t seen one in use for years. Another thing he picked up at the secondhand stalls, I expect.”

“I reckon. And one tie’s as good as another when it comes to a strangling. But it hasn’t been used for that purpose. He’s been throttled by fingers on his throat. Elderly gent on a sparse diet . . . It can’t have taken much force to kill him. Sniff, Redfyre. Notice anything?”

“Oh yes, I’d noticed. Spirit of some sort. Not whisky . . . that’s brandy, surely?”

“Yes. I think when we test those stains down the front of his shirt, that’s what we’ll find.” Beaufort took the man’s right hand and looked at the first two fingers. “Smoker, I see. Well, at least the old bugger indulged in a few pleasurable activities before he snuffed it.”

He peered again at the neck. “Murder. We’re definitely looking at a case of strangulation. Not a hanging, which could well have been self-inflicted and tends to leave other traces, like a noose or other ligature, and a high point from which to dangle. I think we’ll find our Dunstan was strangled to death, most likely by hand, possibly elsewhere, then laid out later in this place. No signs of a struggle hereabouts?”

Redfyre shook his head.

“Well, I think that’s as far as I need go here.” The doctor looked about anxiously. “And if we linger, we’ll get caught up in the morning service. The organ’s tuning up, and I noticed the vicar cycling up to the vestry door just now, corset creaking and moustache starched. I’ll leave you to do the honours, if you don’t mind, though the temptation to hang on and torment humourless old Reverend Turnbull with a few heavy jests about the carelessness of leaving bodies lying about in a graveyard is getting the better of me. I’ll thumb a lift back to the morgue with the blokes in the meat wagon and get straight on with this. Ask your constable to nip off and tell them to give us ten minutes before bringing in their stretcher, will you, John?”

Watching Redfyre turning out the pockets of the greatcoat, he added, “Anything?”