‘Stands to reason. Nothing ’aven’t ’appened to she,’ said Ed, with sombre realism. Mrs Bradley nodded.

‘Who shot at you, Ed?’ she demanded. ‘And why were you expecting that someone would?’

‘That were Mr Emming,’ said Ed. ‘Mr Emming helped Mr Tiny move Mrs Dalby Whittier from Groaning Spinney to the place where she were found.’

‘How on earth can you know that?’

‘I watched the birds. I knowed there were something going on.’

‘But not murder!’

‘Not till I went and ’ad a look.’

‘What did you see, then? And where?’

‘Nothen but footprints.’

‘My nephew, Mr Bradley, saw them, too.’

‘Then he knows as much as I do.’

‘Did you follow them?’

‘Didn’t need to. I see old Simon Crow a-flutterin’ hisself down along by Farmer Daventry’s field. He knowed a dead un, I reckon, and I knowed ’im. There wasn’t nothen else to it.’

‘Which day was this, Ed?’

‘Let me see, now … I reckon ’twud a-been Christmas Eve, all right.’

‘It couldn’t have been! The footsteps you saw were in the snow. It didn’t snow until Christmas night.’

‘Unreliable witness,’ grumbled the Chief Constable, leading the way to his car. ‘Home, Bates. Nothing more to be got out of him, I suppose?’ he added, as the big car slid over the bridge.

‘Nothing at all,’ said Mrs Bradley, cheerfully. ‘But what he says confirms our own suspicions. Of course, the point about the footprints was rather interesting. They were first seen on Boxing Day. Miss Hughes, Mr Mansell and Mr Obury all saw them.’

‘They were seen after that, though, weren’t they?’

‘Well, perhaps not the same ones. My nephew saw long footprints on the twenty-eighth or twenty-ninth.’

‘In Groaning Spinney?’

‘Yes. He then found Mr Bill Fullalove’s dead body. Presumably that also had been moved.’

‘But rigor mortis? And the position of the body as it leaned across that gate! Surely he must have died where he was found?’

‘There are plenty of gates around here,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘I should say that they moved him from one to the other, that’s all.’

‘Good Lord! That would upset the time scheme of the death completely!’

‘Yes, I know, but it is a theory I have held for some time.

‘The devil you have! Why, that means that Tiny—!’

‘Yes, I know.’

‘Well, what do you make of Ed Brown?’

‘Lots of things, but nothing very helpful. What do you?’

‘Dashed if I know. He’s a natural, but he’s as sly and as cunning as only a natural can be.’

‘Do you think he knows more than he has said?’

‘Yes, I do. But how do we get it out of him?’

‘I cannot say. Perhaps we shan’t need to do so.’