“Hardly anything. Linen handkerchief. Bit of change—a few pennies. Ah, and a half crown.”

Beaufort nodded, recognising the significance of the coin. “Which means we can’t officially log him as ‘destitute.’ Fair enough! He has the price of a night’s lodging on him. Show that to any copper challenging him and he couldn’t be moved on for vagrancy. Accordingly, I shall enter him as ‘identity not established, no known abode, occupation unknown’ on my sheet.”

“That would appear to be all in here. No fluff. And that’s a bit odd. You wouldn’t believe the contents of a tramp’s pockets! But there always are contents. They carry their most vital possessions about with them, and the pocket fluff you can expect to be an inch deep and a rich mixture of tobacco crumbs, bread crumbs, birdseed, half-sucked Fisherman’s Friend lozenges . . . Nothing like that here. Let’s take a look at the other one . . . Ah! A bottle of brandy. Half-drunk. Good stuff, too!” He showed the label to the doctor. “A prewar cognac, bottled by and bearing the label of Jude’s College cellars, no less.” He raised a speculative eye to the ornate roofscape of the neighbouring college building just visible over the wall between the thickening green canopies of chestnut, beech and larch.

“Many of these old establishments have trading or family connections with southwest France,” the doctor commented. “Bordeaux . . . Cognac . . . once an English province, Aquitaine. I’ve sampled many a liquid-gold memento of more spacious times at college dinners around the town. Look, I’ll take that with me to the labs,” he offered.

Both men handled the bottle with care, their hands sheathed in rubberised gloves.

“Um . . . birdseed, Redfyre? I’m sure you mentioned birdseed. Am I missing something?”

Redfyre smiled. “I’m not inventing! It’s not unknown for vagrants to lure the town pigeons with a trail of seed, nab them, wring their necks and pop them into the pot they keep on boil down in the meadows. I sometimes take them an offering myself—a bag of pearl barley’s always welcome, or a pound of marrow bones . . . a pheasant in the season.”

“A sort of potluck supper?” The doctor found the idea entertaining. “Good lord! Well, power to their elbows! Too many of the blighters fouling up the pavements. Birds, I mean.”

“Well, that would seem to be it,” Redfyre said, turning the pocket inside out. “Our chap doesn’t seem to have been a pigeon fancier. And there’s no door key, no penknife, not even a pencil stub or a cigarette end. Again—no pocket fluff.”

“Try the inside pocket,” the doctor suggested. “My coat had a discreet ticket pocket on the inside left, I remember. Just big enough for a love letter, a photograph, or . . . well, a ticket.”