‘Apparently not. He kept the room clean himself and had his meals downstairs in her kitchen. She seems a woman without much curiosity, sir, and Emming paid the rent regularly and was nice to her children. We never had any occasion to search her cottage, of course, so we didn’t find the typewriter when we were looking for it before.’

‘What is his explanation for burying it?’

‘He doesn’t give one. Denies that it’s his machine and suggests, of course, that whoever knew it was there is the person who put it there. We’ve got the job now of tracing it to him. It’s a fairly new one, and it’s a portable. It will probably be up to the Yard to take up the trail in London, but we’re going to try Gloucester, Cheltenham and Tewkesbury first. It’s only a matter of routine to find out where he bought it, but, of course, it may take some time. Still, I think it’s all nice and in the bag, sir. Pity is, it doesn’t help us over Mrs Dalby Whittier’s death.’

CHAPTER 18

The Hunt is Up

‘For sure in courts are worlds of costly cares

That cumber reason in his course of rest.’

Nicholas Breton

‘So it’s all over bar the shouting,’ said Miss Hughes.

‘Do you think you’ve a very strong case?’

‘No, I don’t,’ Mrs Bradley replied.

‘It seems almost a pity – don’t you think? – that you did not give Mr Tiny Fullalove in charge when he entered your Kensington house.’

‘It was much more fun to turn on the record and frighten him almost to death,’ said Mrs Bradley, with a ferocity which her hearer had not expected. ‘The plots which he and young Robert Emming concocted against Bill Fullalove and Mrs Dalby Whittier were vicious in the extreme, and I am not inclined to show mercy to either of them.’

‘Just exactly what was the plot, then? I can trace some of it from what you have told me, but not all.’

‘Briefly, it was this: the insurance policy was to be taken out so that it could benefit either cousin if the other one were to die. There was not much likelihood that the insurance people would insist upon seeing the body of Mr William Fullalove when he was reported dead. Bill Fullalove was willing enough to subscribe to the fraud. What he had not the brains (or perhaps the imaginative villainy) to realize was that Tiny was capable of turning the fraud to his own advantage, even to the point of murder.’

‘But you still cannot prove that Bill was murdered?’

‘No.’

‘Still less, how he came by his death?’

‘No, but I have no fewer than eight clues up my sleeve.’

‘Good heavens! Can you tell me? – or shouldn’t I ask?’

‘I will tell you. Two dog-chains, two dog-leads, one oak, one pine and two beeches.’