‘Upon honour, scruple and your dignity, child, as you do now. And remember what I have already said upon the subject.’

Jonathan laughed, but Mrs Bradley, humming a few bars from the Mikado, regarded him dolorously.

‘No, but, really,’ he continued, watching her face, ‘it could be deuced awkward, and it’s of no use to blink the fact. Still, we’re tilting at windmills, aren’t we? All the same, somebody took a fair amount of trouble to make certain that it was I who found the body. I wonder, though …’

‘Say on, child.’

‘Well, the point about the whole thing that baffles me is the time-scheme. It goes back to what Sally once said. How could Tiny Fullalove (supposing him to have murdered Bill and Mrs Whittier) have known that Bill would pass out just when he did? I mean, he had to cook up this alibi about having damaged his knee, he had to time it right, he had to get me up to that gate at the top of Groaning Spinney to find Bill’s body, and he had to fit in his own re-entrance to the bungalow. Suppose he did fake his accident, he had to time that crawl pretty carefully. He had to damage himself sufficiently for the injury to pass muster with the doctors, too, and yet not sufficiently to cause permanent inconvenience to himself. You know, the more you look at it … yes, I do see what you mean about the time of Bill’s death – rigor mortis and the cold and all that … but I think it would have taken somebody with even more brains than Tiny possesses to work all that out, and put it over. By Jove …!’

‘Ah, you think you know someone who would have the brains that you doubt whether Mr Tiny Fullalove possesses?’

‘Well, if Bill was murdered, and if it wasn’t old Tiny who did it, there must be somebody else, accomplice or not.’

‘You do not suggest that Mr Bill was in some way hoist with his own petard? … You don’t think … enlarging on your previous suggestion … that Mr Bill intended to kill Mr Tiny, and that something went wrong, and Nemesis very rightly took a hand?’

‘No,’ said Jonathan. ‘No, I don’t see Bill as a person trapped in the pit he had dug for another. Besides, he wasn’t poisoned. We can’t even prove that he was murdered, and it’s my belief we never shall.’

‘You forget the dogs’ chains and leads, child, and the fact that they were found by Mr Emming in my presence and that of two other witnesses.’

‘Emming, yes. He’s quite the village mystery man, isn’t he? But we can’t prove anything against him. I mean, anybody grubbing about in Groaning Spinney might find almost anything. I daresay Anstey hid the chains and things when they found the dogs had died. That is, if the dogs did die.’