‘Six-fifty, altogether. Fifty at the beginning of the negotiations and the six hundred at quarter-day.’

‘That’s right. That accounts for the six hundred he had in his pocket. He’d just about have cashed it the day he was put away.’

‘The quarter-day was a Sunday. The cheque was actually dated and sent on the 28th. It would have reached him Monday.’

‘That’s right. We’ll check the payment at the bank. but it’s not really necessary. Wonder what they thought of him taking it away in cash instead of paying it in. H’m. It’s a pity it ain’t the bank’s business to give us the office when people do things that look like bolting. But it wouldn’t do naturally.’

‘He must have had it in his pocket when he told poor Crutchley he’d no money to pay him his forty pounds. He could have given it him then.’

‘Course he could, my lady, if he’d wanted to. He was a proper old dodger, was Mr Noakes; a regular Artful Dodger.’

‘Charles Dickens!’

‘That’s right. There’s an author what knew a bit about crooks, didn’t he? A pretty rough place London must have been in those days, if you go by what he says. Fagin and all But we wouldn’t hang a man for being a pickpocket, not now. Well-and having sent the cheque, you just came on here the next week and left it to him?’

‘Yes. Here’s his letter, you see, saying he’d have everything ready. It’s addressed to my agent. We really ought to have sent someone ahead to see to things, but the fact is, as I told you before, what with newspaper reporters and one thing and another-’

‘They give us a lot of trouble, them fellows,’ said Mr Kirk, sympathetically.

‘When,’ said Harriet, ‘they gate-crash your flat and try to bribe your servants.’

‘Fortunately, Bunter is sea-green incorruptible-’

‘Carlyle,’ said Mr Kirk, with approval. ‘French Revolution. Seems a good man, that Bunter. Head screwed on the right way.’

‘But we needn’t have troubled,’ said Harriet. ‘We’ll have them all on our backs now.’

‘Ah!’ said Mr Kirk. ‘That’s what comes of being a public character. You can’t escape the fierce light that beats upon-’

‘Here!’ said Peter, ‘that’s not fair. You can’t have Tennyson twice. Anyway, there it is and what’s done-no, I may want Shakespeare later on. The ironical part of it is that we expressly told Mr Noakes we were coming for peace and quiet and didn’t want the whole thing broadcast about the neighbourhood.’

‘Well, he saw to that all right,’ said the Superintendent. ‘By George, you were making it easy for him. weren’t you? Easy as pie. Off he could go, and no inquiry. Don’t suppose he meant to go quite so far as he did go, all the same.’

‘Meaning, there’s no chance of it’s being suicide?’

‘Not likely, is it, with all that money on him? Besides, the doctor says there’s not a chance of it. We’ll come to that later. About them doors, now. You’re sure they were both locked when you arrived?’

‘Absolutely. The front we opened ourselves with the latchkey, and the back-let me see-’

‘Bunter opened that, I think,’ said Harriet.

‘Better have Bunter in,’ said Peter. ‘He’ll know. He never forgets anything.’ He called Bunter, adding, ‘What we want here is a bell.’

‘And you saw no disturbance, except what you’ve mentioned. Egg-shells and such. No marks? No weapon? Nothing out of its place?’

‘I’m sure I didn’t notice anything,’ said Harriet. ‘But then wasn’t much light, and, of course, we weren’t looking for anything. We didn’t know there was anything to look for.’

‘Wait a bit,’ said Peter. ‘Wasn’t there something struck me this morning? I-no, I don’t know. It was all upset for the sweep, you see. I don’t know what I thought I-If there was anything, it’s gone now… Oh, Bunter! Superintendent Kirk wants to know was the back door locked when we arrived last night.’

‘Locked and bolted, my lord, top and bottom.’

‘Did you notice anything funny about the place at all?’

‘Apart,’ said Mr Bunter, warmly, ‘from the absence o those conveniences that we were led to expect, such as lamps and coal and food and the key of the house and the beds made up and the chimneys swept, and allowing further for the soiled crockery in the kitchen and the presence of Mr Noakes’s personal impedimenta in the bedroom, no, my lord. The house presented no anomalies nor incongruities of any kind that I was able to observe. Except-’

‘Yes?’ said Mr Kirk, hopefully.

‘I attached no significance to it at the time,’ said Bunter slowly, as though he were admitting to a slight defection from duty, ‘but there were two candlesticks in this room upon the sideboard. Both candles were burnt down to the socket. Burnt out.’

‘So they were,’ said Peter. ‘I remember seeing you clear out the wax with a pen-knife. Night’s candles are burnt out.’ The Superintendent, absorbed in the implications of Bunter’s statement, neglected the challenge till Peter poked him in the ribs and repeated it, adding, ‘I knew I should want Shakespeare again!’

‘Eh?’ said the Superintendent ‘Night’s candles? Romeo and Juliet-not much o’ that about this here. Burnt out. Yes. They must a-been alight when he was killed. After dark that means.’

‘He died by candle-light Sounds like the tide of a highbrow thriller. One of yours, Harriet. When found, make a note of.’

‘Captain Cuttle,’ said Mr Kirk, not to be caught napping again. ‘October 2nd-sun would be setting about half-past five. No, it was Summer Time. Say half-past six. I dunno as that gets us much further. You didn’t see nothing lying about as might have been used for a weapon? No mallet or bludgeon, eh? Nothing in the way of a-’

‘He’s going to say it!’ said Peter to Harriet, in a whisper.

‘-in the way of a blunt instrument?’

‘He’s said it!’

‘I’ve never really believed they did say it.’

‘Well, now you know.’

‘No,’ said Bunter, after a short meditation. ‘Nothing of that description. Nothing beyond the customary household utensils in their appropriate situations.’

‘Have we any idea,’ inquired his lordship, ‘what kind of a jolly old blunt instrument we are looking for? How big? What shape?’

‘Pretty heavy, my lord, that’s all I can say. With a smooth, blunt head. Meaning, the skull was cracked like an eggshell, but the skin hardly broken. So there’s no blood to help us, and the worst of it is, we don’t know, no more than Adam, whereabouts it all ’appened. You see, Dr Craven says deceased-Here, Joe, where’s that letter Doctor wrote out for me to send to the coroner? Read it out to his lordship. Maybe he’ll be able to make it out, seem’ he’s had a bit of experience and more eddication than you or me. Beats me what doctors want to use them long words for. Mind you, it’s educational; I don’t say it isn’t I’ll have a go at it with the dictionary afore I goes to bed and I’ll know I’m learning something. But to tell you the truth, we don’t have many murders and violent deaths hereabouts, so I don’t get much practice in the technical part, as you might say.’

‘All right, Bunter,’ said Peter, seeing that the Superintendent had finished with him. ‘You can go.’

Harriet thought Bunter seemed a little disappointed. He would doubtless have appreciated the doctor’s educational vocabulary.

P.C. Sellon cleared his throat and began: ‘ “Dear Sir-It is my duty to notify-”’

‘Not there,’ interrupted Kirk. ‘Where it begins about deceased.’

P.C. Sellon found the place and cleared his throat again:

‘ “I may state, as the result of a superficial examination”-is that it, sir?’

‘That’s it.’

‘ “That deceased appears to ‘ave been, struck with a ‘eavy blunt instrument of some considerable superficies – ”’

‘Meaning, he said, by that,’ explained the Superintendent, ‘as it wasn’t a little fiddlin’ thing like the beak of a ‘ammer.’

‘“On the posterior part of the”-I can’t rightly make this out, sir. Looks to me like “onion”, and that makes sense all right, only it don’t sound like doctor’s language.’