Mrs Bradley walked nearer. When she was within distance she stopped again, took a small revolver from her skirt pocket, aimed with some care, and was rewarded by the sound of a loud explosion and the disappearance of the face. Then she ran for the shelter of the trees.

There was a path through the wood, but she did not use it. She waited and listened. Nothing stirred.

‘You’ll be tired before I shall,’ she thought, and, with her back against a stout trunk and her revolver re-loaded, she waited patiently for half an hour. Still nothing else stirred. She still waited. At last, after about another half hour, she was rewarded. From the opposite side of the gate came the gleam of a torch. Someone was homeward bound.

Satisfied that she knew who it was, she did not attempt to follow. She remained still for another hour. Nothing else happened. Then she heard shouts in the distance, this time behind her. She turned and saw the light of another torch. Her nephew, who had waited up for her, had grown anxious, and had telephoned the Chief Constable’s house until the great man, arriving home, was able to tell him that Mrs Bradley had set off to walk home across the fields. Guessing that she was making for the ghost-gate, Jonathan had come out to find her.

They walked back together, and during the walk she gave an account of the exhumation, its results so far as these were known, and then mentioned the balloon painted with phosphorescence which some practical joker had placed on the haunted gate.

She was up very early next morning and went straight through the Spinney. There were the remains of the balloon, harmless enough to see. She did not touch them. She went back to breakfast, spent an hour in writing to friends and in answering some questions sent to her by the psychiatrist she had left in charge of her London clinic, and then went to Tiny Fullalove’s bungalow.

The woman who cooked and cleaned for him came at eight in the morning, got his breakfast, tidied up, went home for an hour, and then returned to cook his lunch. She was coming back for this second visit when Mrs Bradley met her and walked with her to the bungalow.

‘I doubt he’m out,’ said the woman when Mrs Bradley told her that she had come to see Mr Fullalove. ‘He isn’t generally here when I come back. He walks round the estate, like, on his job.’

‘I’ve come from Mr Bradley’s house,’ said Mrs Bradley.

‘Well, ee don’t want to go all back there profitless,’ said the woman, producing the key of the door. ‘Will ee come in, then, and wait, mam, or will ee leave me with a message, like, do ee think?’