‘This is leading to trouble,’ she said, as soon as she had seen the vicar’s letter. ‘The next thing we’ll be told is that Mr Bill Fullalove was murdered. What’s more, the letter-writer will accuse the cousin, Tiny Fullalove, of being the murderer.’

‘There you are, Bradley! That’s what I meant,’ said the vicar. ‘Your aunt has the courage to put into words what I felt I could not say. If you and she, between you, would think the matter over—? Meanwhile, I shall pursue my own enquiries. Oh, dear! Oh, dear! And even a sensible fellow – a good fellow – like Will North, making the most fantastic observations. Of course I took it upon myself to question his statement, but what worries me very much is that he should have made it.’

‘Will North?’ said Jonathan. ‘Like man, like dog, perhaps?’

In reply to the vicar’s enquiring look, he told the story of the terrier Worry and the ghost gate.

‘What did Will say?’ asked Mrs Bradley, who had formed a good opinion of the gamekeeper.

‘He said that he went up through Groaning Spinney with Tom Mayhew on the afternoon of poor Bill Fullalove’s death, and that when they climbed a bank in which, apparently, there is a family of badgers, he noticed that on a wooden platform intended for a naturalist friend of the Fullalove cousins there was a greater depth of snow than there ought to have been. When Bill Fullalove’s body had been carried up to the bungalow, Will returned by the same route, and noticed that the pile of snow on the platform was appreciably greater, although there had been no more than another light snowfall.’

‘Odd,’ said Jonathan. ‘As a matter of fact, padre, I noticed the platform myself. There certainly was a deal of snow on it when I went up through the spinney. In fact, I remember thinking that the platform might collapse with the weight of it.’

‘Indeed? But who would have gone up there in such weather merely to pile up snow?’

‘What did Will think?’

‘He didn’t say. When I asked him why he had reported the business, he said he did not know. It had just struck him as being unusual.’

‘But he made no investigation?’

‘I did not ask him.’

‘You know,’ said Jonathan to his aunt, when the vicar had gone, ‘the first person to be suspected of writing anonymous letters ought to be our undoubtedly innocent and frighteningly honest incumbent.’

Mrs Bradley cackled.

‘Nothing could be more unlikely,’ she said, ‘than that anybody would believe such a tale. The vicar knows – or should know – all the scandal of the parish. He would not need to invent any!’