“Apparently there was a local witch who was burned alive on New Year’s Eve, hundreds of years ago. As she died she cursed the village that tragedy would strike them at Yuletide every year.”

“And has it?”

“I’ve no idea,” I said, “but the other thing is more serious. You might have read that three convicts escaped from Dartmoor Prison a few days ago. The police seem to think they haven’t gone far. So maybe they are hiding out on the moor and they’ve killed the people who have spotted them.”

“You mean the man out shooting?”

I nodded. “Very early in the morning. Maybe he ran into them.”

“And the man crossing a bridge in the middle of the night? Yes, he could have run into them. But I don’t see how that could apply to your old lady. She didn’t go wandering around on the moor looking for trouble, did she?”

“No, I’m sure she didn’t. I suppose she could have spotted the convicts through her motorcar window. But then she would have telephoned the police straight away, wouldn’t she?”

“And they are hardly likely to have gassed her in her bed. Not the modus operandi of most criminal types. Bashed her head in or suffocated her.”

“Besides,” I said, “they couldn’t get into the house.”

We reached the end of the driveway just as the singers broke into a lusty rendition of:

In his master’s steps he trod, where the snow lay dinted.

Heat was in the very sod, where the saint had printed.

Darcy was frowning, staring up at the big square shape of the Ffrench-Finch house and its plain stone walls. “I don’t think there’s any way that three convicts could be hiding out in a village like this,” he said. “Village eyes are too sharp. They’d notice something. And even if someone was hiding them, the villagers would notice someone buying more food than usual.”

“Your aunt has certainly been buying more food than usual,” I pointed out. “I expect everybody has for Christmas.”

We crossed the deserted street to the Misses Ffrench-Finches’ front door and switched to “O Little Town of Bethlehem.”

A maid opened the door and was joined by two tiny ladies with neat gray buns. They were now dressed in black with fringed Spanish shawls around their shoulders. The first thought that struck me was that their name was so apt. They both listened with their heads to one side, bobbing like little birds.

“So good of you to come,” one of them said in her soft child’s voice. “Effie always loved the carol singing. We won’t invite you in, I’m sure you understand, but do have some of Cook’s delicious mince pies and try some of our homemade elderberry wine.”