“Aye?” The wizened face peeped out the door crack.

Harry looked down. The old woman’s head didn’t come to his breastbone. The hump on her back bent her until she had to peer sideways and up to see her caller.

“Good morning, Mistress Humboldt. My name is Harry Pye. I’d like to talk with you.”

“Best come in, then, hadn’t you, young man?” The tiny figure smiled at Harry’s left ear and opened the door wider. Only then, in the light let in by the open door, did he see the cataracts that clouded the old woman’s blue eyes.

“Thank you, ma’am.”

Bennet and Will were there before him. They sat by a smoldering fire, the only light in the dim room. Will was munching on a scone and eyeing another on a tray.

“Late, aren’t you?” Bennet was more alert than he’d been five hours before. He looked quite pleased to have got the first dig in.

“Some of us have to travel by back lanes.”

Harry helped Mistress Humboldt lower herself into a fan-backed chair piled with knitted pillows. A calico cat padded over, meowing. It leaped into the old lady’s lap and purred loudly even before she started stroking its back.

“Have a scone, Mr. Pye. And if you don’t mind, you can help yourself to tea.” Mistress Humboldt’s voice was thin and whistling. “Now. What have you lads come to talk to me about that you must do it in secret?”

Harry’s mouth twitched. The old woman’s eyes might be fading, but her mind surely wasn’t. “Lord Granville and his enemies.”

Mistress Humboldt smiled sweetly. “Have you got all day, then, young man? For if I was to list everyone who ever had a grudge against that lord, I’d still be talking tomorrow morning.”

Bennet laughed.

“You’re quite right, ma’am,” Harry said. “But what I’m after is the person poisoning the sheep. Who has such hatred of Granville that they’d want to do these crimes?”

The old woman cocked her head and stared at the fire for a moment, the only sound in the room the purring of the cat and Will eating his scone.

“As it happens,” she said slowly, “I’ve been thinking on these sheep killings myself.” She pursed her lips. “Bad things they are and evil because while it hurts the farmer, it merely bothers Lord Granville. Seems to me that what you really should be asking, young man, is who has the heart to do this.” Mistress Humboldt took a sip of tea.

Bennet started to speak. Harry shook his head.

“It takes a hard heart to not care that others are hurt along the way to getting at the lord.” Mistress Humboldt tapped a shaking finger on her knee to punctuate her point.