"Somehow I don't think I handled the business very well. I thought when I went in that I was the one who was on top. But the fellow must have been rather a clever fellow. I couldn't pin him down to anything definite. I thought he'd be frightened when I hinted he'd been doing a spot of blackmail, but it just seemed to amuse him. He asked me - damned cheek - if I was in the market too? 'You can't play your dirty game with me,' I said. 'I've nothing to hide.' And he said rather nastily that that wasn't his meaning. The point was, he said, that he'd got something to sell and was I a buyer? 'What do you mean?' I said. He said: 'How much will you - or the family generally - pay me for the definite proof that Robert Underhay, reported dead in Africa, is really alive and kicking?' I asked him why the devil we should pay anything at all? And he laughed and said, 'Because I've got a client coming this evening who certainly will pay a very substantial sum for proof positive that Robert Underhay is dead.' Then - well, then, I'm afraid I rather lost my temper and told him that my family weren't used to doing that kind of dirty business. If Underhay was really alive, I said, the fact ought to be quite easy to establish. Upon that I was just stalking out when he laughed and said in what was really rather a queer tone, 'I don't think you'll prove it without my co-operation.' Funny sort of way he said that."

"And then?"

"Well, frankly, I went home rather disturbed. Felt, you know, that I'd messed things up. Rather wished I'd left it to old Jeremy to tackle after all. I mean, dash it all, a lawyer's used to dealing with slippery customers."

"What time did you leave the Stag?"

"I've no idea. Wait a sec. Must have been just before nine because I heard the pips for the news as I was going along the village - through one of the windows."

"Did Arden say who it was he was expecting? The 'client'?"

"No. I took it for granted it was David Hunter. Who else could it be?"

"He didn't seem in any way alarmed by the prospect?"

"I tell you the fellow was thoroughly pleased with himself and on top of the world!"

Spence indicated with a slight gesture the heavy steel tongs.

"Did you notice these in the grate, Mr Cloade?"

"Those? No - I don't think so. The fire wasn't lit." He frowned, trying to visualise the scene. "There were fire-irons in the grate, I'm sure, but I can't say I noticed what they were." He added, "Was that what -"

Spence nodded.

"Smashed his skull in."

Rowley frowned.

"Funny. Hunter's a lightly built chap - Arden was a big man - powerful."

The Superintendent said in a colourless voice:

"The medical evidence is that he was struck down from behind and that the blows delivered with the head of the tongs were struck from above."