‘Well, I wouldn’t be surprised. There’s Oliphant at the bridge,’ Alleyn said, waving his hand. ‘We’ll get him to take this stuff straight to Curtis who’ll be in Chyning by now. He’s starting his PM at eleven. Dr Lacklander’s arranged for him to use the hospital mortuary. I want a report as soon as we can get it, on the rag and the shooting-stick.’

‘Will the young doctor attend the autopsy, do you think?’

‘I wouldn’t be surprised. I think our next move had better be a routine check up on Commander Syce.’

‘That’s the chap Miss Kettle mentioned, with lumbago, who lives in the middle house,’ Fox observed. ‘I wonder would he have seen anything.’

‘Depends on the position of his bed.’

‘It’s a nasty thing, lumbago,’ Fox mused.

They handed over Lady Lacklander’s property to Sergeant Oliphant with an explanatory note for Dr Curtis and instructions to search the valley for the whole or part of the missing trout. They then climbed the River Path to Uplands.

They passed through the Hammer Farm spinney and entered that of Commander Syce. Here they encountered a small notice nailed to a tree. It was freshly painted and bore in neatly executed letters the legend: ‘Beware of Archery.’

‘Look at that!’ Fox said. ‘And we’ve forgotten our green tights.’

‘It may be a warning to Nurse Kettle,’ Alleyn said.

‘I don’t get you, sir?’

‘Not to flirt with the Commander when she beats up his lumbago.’

‘Very far-fetched,’ Fox said stiffly.

As they emerged from Commander Syce’s spinney into his garden they heard a twang followed by a peculiar whining sound and the ‘tuck’ of a penetrating blow.

‘What the hell’s that!’ Fox ejaculated. ‘It sounded like the flight of an arrow.’

‘Which is not surprising,’ Alleyn rejoined, ‘as that is what it was.’

He nodded at a tree not far from where they stood and there, astonishing and incongruous, was embedded an arrow prettily flighted in red, and implanted in the centre of a neatly and freshly carved heart. It still quivered very slightly. ‘We can’t say we weren’t warned,’ Alleyn pointed out.

‘Very careless!’ Fox said crossly.

Alleyn pulled out the arrow and looked closely at it. ‘Deadly if they hit the right spot. I hope you’ve noticed the heart. It would appear that Commander Syce has recovered from his lumbago and fallen into love’s sickness. Come on.’

They emerged from the spinney to discover Commander Syce himself some fifty yards away, bow in hand, quiver at thigh, scarlet-faced and irresolute.

‘Look here!’ he shouted. ‘Damn’ sorry and all that, but great grief, how was I to know and, damn it all, what about the notice?’

‘Yes, yes,’ Alleyn rejoined. ‘We’re here at our own risk.’