“I’ve been trying to get in touch with Mary Raven, your reporter,” Ramsay said. “She wasn’t at home yesterday. Do you know where she is? I phoned the paper earlier, but no-one had seen her.”

“She was working in the magistrates court this morning,” James said. “I usually cover it, but Alice’s death made me forget all about it. She’ll be in the office tomorrow, I expect, if you want to talk to her, though I’m not sure if she’ll be able to help you.”

That came as something of a relief to Ramsay. One disappearing witness was quite enough.

“We have a little more information about Mrs. Parry,” he said. “She left Henshaw’s quite safely and arrived home at midnight.”

“We were both in bed by midnight,” Stella said quickly. “Weren’t we, darling? I was fast asleep. I always sleep so much better at Brinkbonnie than I do here.”

“I was certainly in bed,” James said, “though I was probably still reading then.”

“You didn’t hear anything?”

“Nothing.”

“Where was your room?”

“In the northwest corner of the Tower.”

“So you would have had a view of the churchyard and the drive?”

“I suppose so. Yes. But I didn’t look out.”

“What about you, Mrs. Laidlaw? Did you see anyone around the Tower or in the churchyard?”

She smiled a wide, feline smile. “No,” she said. “I didn’t see anything.” She almost purred with satisfaction, stretched, and settled again into the chair.

“Surely the most important thing,” James said, brusque and businesslike, “is to find out who wrote that anonymous letter.”

“Oh,” Ramsay said. “We know that. It was Charlie Elliot.”

“He’s your man then.”

“Perhaps. We need to talk to him certainly.”

“You mean you’ve let him go!”

Ramsay felt a familiar irritation. “It’s important, you know, to keep an open mind,” he said mildly.

“All the same, there’ll be some serious questions about how this investigation’s been handled!”

There was the sound then of a car pulling up on the drive outside the house and the front doorbell rang. James seemed frustrated to be disturbed in the middle of his indignation. He shut the door behind him as he went out, but from the sitting room they heard raised voices, angry words. For a moment the other voice was vaguely familiar to Ramsay, but it subsided almost immediately and the impression was lost. The front door was opened and slammed shut and then the car drove away.

“Problems?” Ramsay asked when James returned to the room.

“Not really,” James said. “We printed an uncomplimentary story about a local businessman who’d been prosecuted by the health and safety executive. He wanted to complain. Said we were biased. It’s all nonsense, of course.”

“Do people often come to your house?”

“No,” James said shortly. “ It’s not something I encourage. It won’t happen again.”