‘I have no business whatever to do so, unless it may be to save you from the hangman.’

‘Oh,’ said Tiny flippantly, his small green eyes intelligent again and all the exasperation gone from his voice, ‘don’t you think the little woman of Bill’s has done that?’

‘If your cousin could be proved to have been a murderer’s victim, yes. But there is also the case of Mrs Dalby Whittier to be considered.’

‘Look here, sit down again,’ said Tiny. When Mrs Bradley had complied with this request, he continued, watching her warily, ‘have you got something up your sleeve about that? I had nothing to do with it, you know. She left here on Christmas Eve afternoon. I don’t know which way she decided to take to get to the bus stop, but the place where she was found wouldn’t be on any possible route, as you probably know. Somebody poisoned her. Because she lived here you think that I must be the guilty person. Is that it?’

‘If the police are not to think so, what other explanation can be given?’ Mrs Bradley enquired.

‘There’s only one,’ agreed Tiny. ‘Bill did it, and then he committed suicide either through fear or remorse.’ He laughed. ‘You can forget that one. Old Bill never did either of those things.’

‘No,’ said Mrs Bradley, ‘I don’t believe he did. Then won’t you co-operate with me to find the real murderer?’

‘Not if it means sticking my own neck into the noose! Dash it all, I don’t want old Bill’s memory to be mud, but he’s dead, when all’s said and done, and it wouldn’t help him for me to get myself hanged.’

This reasonable point of view won Mrs Bradley’s approval. ‘When do you expect to recall your dogs and cats from their foster-homes?’ she enquired. Tiny’s face twisted. She thought he was going to cry.

‘He’s hard enough to commit a dozen murders,’ said her nephew. ‘The question is one of motive. Why should he have poisoned the woman? That’s the question. And, equally, why should he have let that cottage of his to this supposed wife of Bill’s? Dash it all, if she can prove her case, she’s Tiny’s worst enemy! Why should he go out of his way to help her to stay in the district?’

‘What would you say is the simplest mathematical proposition?’ Mrs Bradley enquired.

‘Eh? Oh, two and two make four, I suppose. Why?’

‘There is an answer,’ said Mrs Bradley mildly.

CHAPTER 14

The Beginning of the End

‘Alle we shule deye, thath us like ylle.’

Anonymous, c.1300

Mrs Bradley carried out her promise to leave the Cotswolds in order to visit her London clinic, but her return was to be sooner than Tiny Fullalove supposed.