‘Well, I want to get back,’ said Mrs Bradley; but back where she did not say. ‘As for Will North, I fancy he can be trusted with a gun!’ Mansell looked in a gloomy way at his dig, and then began to gather his impedimenta together. Obury and Emming helped him. The last Mrs Bradley saw of them was three rather dejected-looking figures making for the village by the route they had followed to go off to lunch.

She turned her back on them, and was soon at the lonely cottage. There was no sign of anybody about the place. The little garden was springing to life, but it was overgrown and untidy with plants that should have been cut down or dug up during the previous autumn. The windows were closed; the door – for Mrs Bradley tried it very cautiously – was locked.

Nevertheless she knocked. She even went so far as to peer in through the curtained panes. It certainly seemed as though the occupant was out, but to make certain she knocked a second and then a third time, but still there was no response.

Mrs Bradley was about to give up when she saw the woman she wanted coming down the hill from the direction of the village.

‘Good day,’ said the woman. ‘I am sorry, but I’m not a churchgoer.’

‘And I,’ responded Mrs Bradley, ‘am not a district visitor. I am wondering whether I can interest you—’

‘And I don’t want to buy anything,’ said the woman. ‘Just because I’ve come into a bit of money—’

‘Oh, you have come in for it, then? There has been a great deal of talk, naturally, but none of us really knew.’

‘People should mind their own business and let me mind mine. But villages are all alike!’

‘Are you thinking of settling in the village, I wonder?’

‘I don’t know yet. There’s a lot of things to see to.’

‘There must be. Oh, well, I suppose I might have saved myself a journey. I wasn’t going to try to sell you anything, you know. I just wondered whether I could interest you—’

‘Well, in what?’

‘In the death of Mr Clarence Fullalove,’ said Mrs Bradley, pronouncing this name with great distinctness. The woman eyed her for a moment. Then she said:

‘You’d better come in and sit down. I was just going to make a cup of tea.’

‘Thank you, I never drink tea quite so soon before lunch, but I would very much like to come in.’

The cottage was almost unfurnished. There was nothing in the room except a small deal table and a couple of chairs. The floor had one rug and was otherwise bare. There were curtains at the window but they were faded and shrunk.

‘It’s not much of a place,’ said the woman, ‘but it will do until I get my rights, which I shall do, believe you me!’