Official channels were far from slow, but, all the same, before the comparison of the first anonymous letter with Mrs Whittier’s ration book had been made, Mrs Bradley’s enquiry had taken a livelier turn.

‘Mrs Dalby Whittier?’ said Anstey. ‘I don’t know for sure, I’m sure, ma’am, what time she left the bungalow for to go away on Christmas Eve, except she was there at the mid-day. Anyways, I didn’t know she was going right up to London. She never mentioned it to me or the missus. Cut her stick, so I always understood, and come to live out here a-purpose. The missus always reckoned her husband had left her, but I don’t know, I’m sure. Least said, soonest mended, about them there sort o’ matters.’

‘Ah,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘And now about this message which came from Mr Tiny Fullalove on the twenty-ninth of December. At what time was it slipped under your front door?’

‘Oh, that would a-been a matter of – let me see, now. It were the old woman as found it. Oo – see here, now, lass!’ He turned his head and called out through the half-open kitchen door. ‘What time did you pick up that there note, like, from Mr Tiny?’

‘Oo, that would a-been about three o’clock, I reckon. Who wants to know?’

‘Friend o’ the squire’s.’

‘What friend?’

‘His aunt,’ said Mrs Bradley, neatly inserting this reply. ‘It is rather important. There is a question of Mr Bill’s will.’

‘Oo?’

‘Yes. So if we could establish whether Mr Tiny was injured before or after Mr Bill’s death, it might make a difference to the disposition of the property.’

‘I see. Well, I knows the note weren’t here at half-past two,’ said Mrs Anstey, appearing in the doorway, ‘but I reckon it were here by three.’

‘Talking of Mr Bill’s money, whatever it might be,’ said Anstey suddenly to his wife, ‘didn’t Mrs Whittier once tell Mrs Blott, down at the Post Office when she was drawing out of her Bank book, as she might have expectations there?’

‘By the way,’ said Mrs Bradley, hoping that her nephew would betray neither surprise nor unseemly curiosity at these interesting tidings, ‘do you mind telling me, Mr Anstey, how you knew that Mrs Dalby Whittier was at the bungalow at mid-day on Christmas Eve?’

‘Sure I’ll tell ee, mam. You remember, mother?’

‘Yes, that nasty curry. Her sent little Bob Wootton over with it in a basin, but none of us can abide the stuff, so, without saying nawthen to young Bob, I just gives it to father and tells en to give it to Lassie and Cripes.’

‘The dogs?’

‘Ah.’

‘Did they eat it?’