The three of us resumed the places we had taken a few days earlier, the commander behind his desk, I facing him, DC Yeats a little off to the side, near the filing cabinet, leaning forward, all alert anticipation. He cleared his throat. “Sir?”

“Yes?”

“More information came through just a few minutes ago There is a record of closure of the Bluebell Children’s Home Trust account and a transfer of monies into the Brock-Dell Mining account.”

“Was it legal?” Woodhead asked.

“Yes, sir.”

Woodhead slid on his spectacles and looked at my report. “You believe Mr. Aspinall met his end at the Corner Shop?”

“I have no doubt of that.” Perhaps I should have had doubts. Sergeant Dog is such an eager hound that had he smelled jam roly-poly on the doormat he would be as wildly enthusiastic as Mrs. Sugden had described.

With some reluctance, Yeats spoke again, this time without clearing his throat. “Sir, in the message that’s on your desk from Wakefield, you’ll see CID are conducting an intensive search of the Corner Shop this morning. It will be sealed, a little belatedly perhaps, and also –”

Mr. Woodhead turned scarlet. “Who authorised this?”

“I don’t believe authorisation is necessary, sir, in the case of a crime scene, and –” He hesitated.

“And what?”

“The inspector has applied for search warrants, just a formality I suppose, for the properties of Mr. Brockman and Mr. Dell.”

Mr. Woodhead brought down his fist on his desk, and the pain registered ever so slightly in a tightening of his lips. “I will not have it. Brockman and Dell have been written up in The Times. They are sinking the deepest pit in Great Britain, perhaps the deepest mine in Europe. They will be saviours of the nation.” He glared at me. “Mr. Brockman may be the next Lord Lieutenant of your county, madam. Then where will you be?”

Had it been written on his forehead in coal dust, it could not have been more certain. Mr. Woodhead was an investor in the Bluebell Mine. What good company I had avoided by my reluctance to participate in that golden opportunity.

Mr. Woodhead rose. He pushed back his chair. “I’ll be back shortly. Talk among yourselves if you wish, but not about the case.”

He left the room. I listened to the receding thud of his heavy footsteps.

Martin Yeats spoke first. “One of the things I have learned is how easy it is to build a plausible case.”

“You think I’m wrong to have my suspicions?”

“I don’t have an opinion.”

Clearly, Mr. Woodhead did have an opinion, and a strong one. My misgivings flooded back. In certain quarters, it would be convenient for Stephen Walmsley to have one more charge laid against him. “I haven’t yet built a case. We’re still gathering information.”

He raised his eyebrows. “And none of it about a revolutionary and Russian gold?”