‘A short one, then, if I may. Don’t be long. Lunch is at one, and I’ve promised faithfully to be back because Millie wants to go into Cheltenham this afternoon, and the shops shut at five or thereabouts.’

‘He doesn’t propose to stay to lunch, and he wants Aunt Adela,’ announced Jonathan. His aunt accompanied him to the study and Doctor Fielding was brief and lucid.

‘Not to beat about the bush, Mrs Bradley,’ he said, ‘I’ve been informed by an anonymous correspondent that Bill Fullalove was murdered.’

‘Yes, that’s my opinion, too,’ said Mrs Bradley.

‘Your opinion? Do you mean—?’

‘It is impossible for me to make any clear or even rational statement in support of my opinion,’ said Mrs Bradley, ‘but I had some opportunity of observing Mr Bill Fullalove during Christmas, and there seemed no reason to suppose that he would collapse and die of cold during a walk in the snow. But, of course, I did not test his heart, and, in any case, it is not my business to challenge the verdict given at the inquest.’

‘Quite so. Well, if he was murdered, I’m in the cart, and in it with me is the police surgeon. We both examined the body and there was no sign of foul play, and no possible symptoms of poisoning.’

‘Did you look particularly? – I mean, had you poison in mind?’

‘I did not think of murder by poison. Such an idea would never have entered my head. But one does think of suicide and accident, naturally, and had there been the very smallest grounds for suspicion, I’d have seen about an autopsy. But I can assure you solemnly that there was not the slightest suggestion of anything of the kind. You’re an authority on forensic medicine, and you know all the signs of death by poisoning as well as I do.’

Mrs Bradley nodded.

‘It couldn’t have been poison,’ she said, ‘in the accepted sense of that term. Now, would you be prepared for an exhumation? – I mean, if there were anything else to go on besides these anonymous letters?’

‘I don’t know. It’s rather sticking my neck out, isn’t it?’

‘The days of the martyrs are over, of course,’ said Mrs Bradley, with an amused glance at her nephew.

‘No, but look here,’ said Doctor Fielding, ‘if anything seems likely to blow up, I’m prepared to repeat, very loud and clear, what I thought at the time – that I was astonished that Fullalove died like that. Not that he’d ever been my patient, mind you.’

‘Good,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘I, too, saw the body, as you say, although I did not examine it closely owing to the difficulties out there in the snow and the degree of rigor. But let us risk a stern rebuff, and see what the police surgeon has to say.’