“I don’t think a man wrote the letters—in fact I’m sure of it—and so is Graves—always excepting our Mr. Pye, that is to say, who’s got an abnormally female streak in his character. But we’ve checked up on everybody for yesterday afternoon. That’s a murder case, you see. You’re all right,” he grinned, “and so’s your sister, and Mr. Symmington didn’t leave his office after he got there and Dr. Griffith was on a round in the other direction, and I’ve checked upon his visits.”

He paused, smiled again, and said, “You see, we are thorough.”

I said slowly, “So your case is eliminated down to those four— Miss Ginch, Mr. Pye, Miss Griffith and little Miss Barton?”

“Oh, no, no, we’ve got a couple more—besides the vicar’s lady.”

“You’ve thought of her?”

“We’ve thought of everybody, but Mrs. Dane Calthrop is a little too openly mad, if you know what I mean. Still, she could have done it. She was in a wood watching birds yesterday afternoon—and the birds can’t speak for her.”

He turned sharply as Owen Griffith came into the police station.

“Hallo, Nash. I heard you were round asking for me this morning. Anything important?”

“Inquest on Friday, if that suits you, Dr. Griffith.”

“Right. Moresby and I are doing the P.M. tonight.”

Nash said:

“There’s just one other thing, Dr. Griffith. Mrs. Symmington was taking some cachets, powders or something, that you prescribed for her—”

He paused. Owen Griffith said interrogatively:

“Yes?”

“Would an overdose of those cachets have been fatal?”

Griffith said dryly:

“Certainly not. Not unless she’d taken about twenty-five of them!”

“But you once warned her about exceeding the dose, so Miss Holland tells me.”

“Oh that, yes. Mrs. Symmington was the sort of woman who would go and overdo anything she was given—fancy that to take twice as much would do her twice as much good, and you don’t want anyone to overdo even phenacetin or aspirin—bad for the heart. And anyway there’s absolutely no doubt about the cause of death. It was cyanide.”

“Oh, I know that—you don’t get my meaning. I only thought that when committing suicide you’d prefer to take an overdose of a soporific rather than to feed yourself prussic acid.”

“Oh quite. On the other hand, prussic acid is more dramatic and is pretty certain to do the trick. With barbiturates, for instance, you can bring the victim round if only a short time has elapsed.”

“I see, thank you, Dr. Griffith.”

Griffith departed, and I said goodbye to Nash. I went slowly up the hill home. Joanna was out—at least there was no sign of her, and there was an enigmatical memorandum scribbled on the telephone block presumably for the guidance of either Partridge or myself.