Mrs Bradley was not very anxious to tackle young Emming again so soon after her previous visit. Nevertheless, one of the people in the wood had dropped the package, and Deborah and Sally, who had been into the wood for catkins, both denied all knowledge of it. Mrs Bradley believed them. She gave the matter careful consideration, and then asked first Obury and then Mansell about it. She told them her suspicion that it had been ‘planted’, and received in return a direct answer from each man. Neither used aspirin in any form whatsoever, and neither had seen the packet when he had been in the wood.

‘And I’ve been around that badgers’ sett enough,’ added Obury.

She went to Tiny Fullalove. He said that he had seen the packet but had taken no notice of it. He was potting at the grey squirrels, he said. He and Will North had the devil of a job to keep down the little pests.

Mrs Bradley had heard about the grey squirrels from Will North, but she thought that Tiny’s balance would not be sufficiently controlled yet to make shooting a very satisfying pastime.

She did not say this to Tiny, since she did not wish to appear to doubt him, but she decided that, after all, it would be as well to interview Emming in case he heard of her questioning the others.

He received her suspiciously, but agreed that he had been in the spinney.

‘I’m writing a little book on fungi,’ he said in a surly tone which showed unwillingness to give her any information. He denied having seen the packet, but added, in a disagreeable tone, that it was not his business to act as a blasted park-keeper. Mrs Bradley, interested to note how seriously her previous visit had upset him, returned to the manor house.

Here Jonathan had news.

‘The police have got a move on at last!’ he said. ‘Bill Fullalove is going to be exhumed.’

Mrs Bradley rang up the Chief Constable.

‘Have the insurance doctor present? Yes, if you like. This is all a lot of ballyhoo, you know. There is no reason whatever to suspect that Fullalove was poisoned!’

‘There are some grounds for suspecting that a fraud has been worked on the insurance company, though,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘I want the insurance doctor to be allowed to help carry out the autopsy, and I want to be there myself at the exhumation.’

‘No place for a woman!’

‘It is a place for a knowledgeable citizen,’ said Mrs Bradley, serenely. ‘If I never see anything worse than the slightly decomposed body of a healthy man, I shall account myself fortunate.’