As I went to take my leave, another thought struck me. “Sal, on the night that the old lady at the big house died, you went to the kitchen for food, didn’t you? You didn’t see anyone else, did you?”

“When I was leaving, I did see Willum,” she said. “He was going round the side of the house to their back garden.”

I paused, digesting this. “Did you speak to him? Did he say what he was doing?”

She shook her head. “No. I didn’t speak to him. I just went my way and left him to it. Willum often does jobs for people.”

“I must go. I’m supposed to be meeting people,” I said.

“Remember what Sal just told you,” she said. “You watch yourself, miss. And you had any sense, you’d go home now, before it’s too late. Sal sees danger in your future.”

I was still strangely shaken by the time I arrived at the cottage and found the inspector and my grandfather standing together beside the big black police motor. Granddad and I got into the backseat while the inspector rode in the front, next to his driver.

“It should be a nice ride to Torquay today,” the inspector said. “Better than driving in that awful fog yesterday.”

“I hope your meeting went well,” I said.

“Have you been keeping tabs on me?”

“Of course not.” I flushed. “Your constable said you’d had to go for a meeting.”

“Of a sort,” he said. “The prisoner they recaptured in Birmingham has just been returned to Dartmoor Prison. I went to talk to him.”

“And did you learn anything?”

“Not a dicky bird. He still maintains that they split up as soon as they reached the road, and he thought the other two were both heading for London. As for how he made it to Birmingham and where he got his civilian clothes, he’s just not talking.”

“You won’t get convicts to squeal on each other, unless there is something in it for them,” Granddad said.

“I just met Wild Sal,” I said. And I told them about her seeing the body dragged into the bog and the fact that she’d seen Willum in the Ffrench-Finches’ back garden.

“Willum? The simple-headed one?” The inspector stroked his chin. I noticed he’d shaved that morning. “I can’t see him having the wit to pull off crimes like these. He’s like a big kiddie. No, I think we’ll find we’re dealing with a real smart aleck, the sort of man who thinks he’s the cat’s whisker and that society hasn’t appreciated his talents. You know, the quiet bank clerk who feels that he’s been overlooked. Probably doesn’t have friends. Probably spent months or years planning this.”