‘He was laying in the edge of Puddler Pond, where it ain’t more than a few inches deep. ‘Course, somebody might hev held him down, or he could hev took a fit, but that ain’t very likely, is it?’

Miss Mayfield lifted the tea-pot, but it wobbled so wildly that she set it down again hastily. Berta stepped forward and poured out a cup.

‘I give you a turn,’ she said. ‘I never meant to. But I had a turn meself, seeing them carry him in. He did look awful.’

‘Was a policeman there?’

‘A policeman? How could there be? There’s only Cobb, and he live at Renham.’

‘Then they shouldn’t have moved him,’ said Miss Mayfield, with such passionate conviction in her voice that Berta looked at her with astonishment.

‘They couldn’t just leave the poor chap laying there, face down in the water, could they? ’Twouldn’t be human. They took a gate off its hinges and brought him home.’

Miss Mayfield knew Puddler Pond. It lay on the edge of Ling Wood, a stretch of the original forest which still stood towards the rear of her own house, separating the village from the first of the fields belonging to the farmer named Maverick. She had made its acquaintance on a happy day during her very first week in Walwyk. Miss Benson had come to school limping; she had sprained an ankle playing tennis. ‘Tough luck on my brats,’ she had said. ‘I’d promised them a nature walk this afternoon. We always make a picnic of our nature walks, and the poor little brutes have brought their fodder.’

Miss Mayfield had seen here an excellent opportunity to get to know the Juniors whom she would not actually teach, so she had offered to take the walk. ‘Where shall we go? You have to guide me, you know,’ she had said. After a shy pause somebody said, ‘Let’s go to Puddler Pond.’ They had led the way, out of the village, turned in at a gateway in the left-hand hedge and walked a well-trodden pathway towards the trees. When they reached the wood they fell silent and seemed to huddle together. The Pond was dish-shaped, and all around it grew pink willow herb and cowslips and small wild purple orchises.

‘There’s lilies of the valley, too, later on,’ someone said.

‘I expect you often come here.’

‘No fear!’

‘Well, no. I suppose your parents are afraid you might fall in.’

‘They know we wouldn’t go near. The Puddler’d get us!’