Margaret said, “I lay awake all of last night wondering if Walter Stoakley might have done it, but, no, it’s impossible. He can’t stand up without help, let alone get himself to London. To commit three murders would be quite beyond him.”

“Walter Stoakley?” I sat forward in my chair. “The drunken old cove at the King’s Head that I spoke to yesterday? Why should he want to murder Harriet Sippel, Ida Gransbury and Richard Negus?”

“Because Frances Ive was his daughter,” said Margaret. She turned to look out of the window at the Ives’ gravestone, and once again the line from the Shakespeare sonnet came into my mind: For slander’s mark was ever yet the fair.

“I would be glad if Walter had committed the murders,” said Margaret. “Isn’t that dreadful of me? I would be relieved that Nancy hadn’t done it. Walter’s old, and there’s not much life left in him, I don’t think. Oh, I don’t want it to be Nancy! I’ve read in the papers about how well Nancy is doing as an artist. She left here and really made a name for herself. That was a source of comfort to me. I was happy to think of her prospering in London.”

“Left here?” I said. “So Nancy Ducane also lived in Great Holling at one time?”

Margaret Ernst was still staring out of the window. “Yes. Until 1913.”

“The same year that Patrick and Frances Ive died. The same year that Richard Negus also left the village.”

“Yes.”

“Margaret . . .” I leaned forward in an attempt to draw her attention away from the Ives’ gravestone. “I’m hoping for all I’m worth that you have decided to tell me the story of Patrick and Frances Ive. I’m certain that once I have heard it, I will understand many things that are a mystery to me at present.”

She turned her serious eyes toward me. “I have decided to tell you the story, on one condition. You must promise not to repeat it to anybody in the village. What I say to you in this room must go no further until you arrive in London. There, you may tell whomever you wish.”