Reports and observations, drawings and sketch-plans, maps and charts came in after that as fast as even the devoted Deborah could deal with them, and Mrs Bradley, besides enjoying her own share of the field-work, spent long evenings looking for clues among the students’ handiwork – or so Deborah fondly and erroneously imagined. She had forgotten Mrs Bradley’s abstruse references to beaters, noises and quarries.

Jonathan, who had been to Gloucester, came back one afternoon to find his aunt and Deborah in full session. As soon as he had had his tea, Mrs Bradley invited him to crouch or squat beside the one-inch map and check her findings.

‘It begins to look as though Mrs Dalby Whittier did not choose her own route or lose her way,’ she said. ‘Tomorrow I wish you would come with me to the spot where we found the body, and then you can pick holes in my argument, and then if you can find a flaw in my reconstruction I shall be most relieved.’

She took her nephew by the hair and gently directed his attention to the Ordnance map by pulling his face almost on to it.

‘Eh? Oh, yes, rather, of course! I say, Deb—’

‘Good,’ said Mrs Bradley, cutting him short. ‘Well, now, look, Mrs Dalby Whittier set out from the bungalow, according to the evidence we have, at about a quarter to four. She was to get the bus at ten to five. She should have had ample time to do this if she went by the sensible and obvious route which leads straight across the footpath over Mr Daventry’s field and joins the road through the village. At the end of that road is the bus route. Now the interesting thing is this: the snow did not begin falling until Christmas night, by which time Mrs Dalby Whittier should have been in London for more than twenty-four hours.’

‘Well, but …’

‘Quite so. She may have left the bungalow at the time that we suggest, but she may have had some reason to return to it later. On the evidence of her London relatives, she certainly never reached their house. Therefore—’

‘If she did come back the idea would be, of course, that she had something she particularly wished to do. Perhaps she had left behind her a Christmas present for one of the relatives she was to visit. At any rate, it would have been something for which the telephone, or even a letter, would not have been adequate, I suppose,’ said Jonathan.

‘It is impossible to say. But we shall know a good deal more when the inquest is resumed. The police are now in a strong position to assume that she was murdered. One of the symptoms of poisoning by belladonna, which, as you know, is the product of the deadly nightshade, is intense vomiting.’

‘No sign of that?’

‘None.’

‘So she was carried to where she was found!’