Alleyn and Fox having chuckled in the right place, the sergeant continued: ‘No sign of the weapon so far as we could make out, flashing our torches round. I was particular not to go hoofing over the ground.’

‘Admirable,’ said Alleyn.

‘Well,’ said Sergeant Oliphant, ‘it’s what we’re told, sir, isn’t it?’

‘Notice anything at all out of the way?’ Alleyn asked. The question was inspired more by kindliness than curiosity and the sergeant’s reaction surprised him. Oliphant brought his two freckled hams of hands down on the driving-wheel and made a complicated snorting noise. ‘Out of the way!’ he shouted. ‘Ah, my God, I’ll say we did. Out of the way! Tell me, now, sir, are you a fly-fisherman?’

‘Only fair to middling to worse. I do when I get the chance. Why?’

‘Now listen,’ Sergeant Oliphant said, quite abandoning his official position. ‘There’s a dirty great fish in this Chyne here would turn your guts over for you. Pounds if he’s an ounce, he is. Old in cunning, he is; wary and sullen and that lordly in his lurkings and slinkings he’d break your heart. Sometimes he’ll rise like a monster,’ said Sergeant Oliphant, urging his car up Watt’s Hill, ‘and snap, he’s took it, though that’s only three times. Once being the deceased’s doing a matter of a fortnight ago, which he left his cast in his jaws he being a mighty fighter. And once the late squire, Sir Harold Lacklander, he lost him through being, as the man himself frankly admitted, overzealous in the playing of him. Now,’ the sergeant shouted, ‘NOW, for the last and final cast, hooked, played and landed by the poor Colonel, sir, and lying there by his dead body, or I can’t tell a five-pound trout from a stickleback. Well, if he had to die, he couldn’t have had a more glorious end. The Colonel, I mean, Mr Alleyn, not the Old ’Un,’ said Sergeant Oliphant.

They had followed Watt’s Lane down into the valley and up the slope through blinding rain to the village. Oliphant pulled up at a spot opposite the Boy and Donkey. A figure in a mackintosh and tweed hat stood in the lighted doorway.

‘The Chief Constable, sir,’ said Oliphant. ‘Sir James Punston. He said he’d drive over and meet you.’

‘I’ll have a word with him, before we go in. Wait a moment.’

Alleyn crossed the road and introduced himself. The Chief Constable was a weather-beaten tough-looking man who had been a chief commissioner of police in India.

‘Thought I’d better come over,’ Sir James said, ‘and take a look at this show. Damn’ bad show it is. Damn’ nice fellow, Cartarette. Can’t imagine who’d want to set about him, but no doubt you’ll be able to tell us. I’ll come down with you. Filthy night, isn’t it?’