“Was that all you wanted to know?” she asked.

“I think so. No, there’s one other thing. You won’t believe this but it happens to be true. Ever since that dinner-party at Mardling — months ago when we met again — I’ve had — I mean I’ve not been able to get you out of my head. You haven’t changed all that much, Verry. Whatever you may say, it was very pleasant. Us. Well, wasn’t it? What? Come on, be honest. Wasn’t it quite fun?”

He actually put his hand over hers. She was aghast. Something of her incredulity and enormous distaste must have appeared in her face. He withdrew his hand as if it had been scalded.

“I’d better get on my tin tray and slide off,” he said. “Thank you for seeing me.”

He got into his car. Verity went indoors and gave herself a strong drink. The room felt cold.

iv

Claude Carter had gone. His rucksack and its contents had disappeared and some of his undelicious garments.

His room was in disorder. It had not been Mrs. Jim’s day at Quintern Place. She had told Alleyn to use her key hidden under the stone in the coal house, and they had let themselves in with it.

There was a note scrawled on a shopping pad in the kitchen. “Away for an indefinite time. Will let you know if and when I return. C.C.” No date. No time.

And now, in his room, they searched again and found nothing of interest until Alleyn retrieved a copy of last week’s local newspaper from the floor behind the unmade bed.

He looked through it. On the advertisement page under “Cars for Sale” he found, halfway down the column, a ring round an insertion that offered a 1964 Heron for £500 or nearest offer. The telephone number had been underlined.

“He gave it out,” Alleyn reminded Fox, “that he was seeing a man about a car.”

“Will I ring them?”

“If you please, Br’er Fox.”

But before Fox could do so a distant telephone began to ring. Alleyn opened the door and listened. He motioned to Fox to follow him and walked down the passage toward the stairhead.

The telephone in the hall below could now be heard. He ran down the stairs and answered it, giving the Quintern number.

“Er, yes,” said a very loud man’s voice. “Would this be the gentleman who undertook to buy a sixty-four Heron off of me and was to collect it yesterday evening? Name of Carter?”

“He’s out at the moment, I’m afraid. Can I take a message?”

“Yes, you can. I’ll be obliged if he’ll ring up and inform me one way or the other. If he don’t, I’ll take it the sale’s off and dispose of the vehicle elsewhere. He can collect his deposit when it bloody suits him. Thank you.”

The receiver was jammed back before Alleyn could reply.

“Hear that?” he asked Fox.

“Very put about, wasn’t he? Funny, that. Deposit paid down and all. Looks like something urgent cropped up to make him have it on the toes,” said Fox, meaning “bolt.”

“Or it might be he couldn’t raise the principal. What do you reckon, Mr. Alleyn? He’s only recently returned from abroad so his passport ought to be in order.”

“Presumably.”

“Or he may be tucked away somewhere handy or gone to try and raise the cash for the car. Have we got anything on his associates?”

“Nothing to write home about. His contact in the suspected drug business is thought to be a squalid little stationer’s shop in Southampton: one of the sort that provides an accommodation address. It’s called The Good Read and is in Port Lane.”

“Sussy on drugs,” Fox mused, “and done for blackmail.”

“Attempted blackmail. The victim didn’t play ball. He charged him and Claude did three months. Blackmail tends to be a chronic condition. He may have operated at other times with success.”

“What’s our move, then?”

“Complete this search and then get down to the village again and see if we can find anything to bear out Artie’s tale of Claude’s nocturnal on-goings.”

When they arrived back at the village and inspected the. hedgerow near the corner of Stile Lane and Long Lane they soon found what they sought, a hole in the tangle of saplings, blackthorn and weeds that could be crept into from the field beyond and was masked from the sunken lane below by grasses and wild parsnip. Footprints from a hurdle-gate into the field led to the hole and a flattened depression within it where they found five cigarette butts and as many burnt matches. Clear of the hedge was an embryo fireplace constructed of a few old bricks and a crossbar of wood supported by two cleft sticks.

“Snug,” said Fox. “And here’s where sonny-boy plays Indian.”

“That’s about the form.”

“And kips with the bunnies and tiggywinkles.”

“And down the lane comes Claude with his pack on his back.”

“All of a summer’s night.”

“All right, all right. He must have passed more or less under Artie’s nose.”

“Within spitting range,” Fox agreed.

“Come on.”

Alleyn led the way back into Long Lane and to the lych-gate at the foot of the church steps. He pushed it open and it squeaked.

“I wonder,” Alleyn said, “how many people have walked up those steps since nine o’clock last night. The whole funeral procession.”

“That’s right,” said Fox gloomily.

“Coffin bearers, mourners. Me. After that, tidy-uppers, and the Vicar, one supposes.”

He stooped down, knelt, peered. “Yes, I think so,” he said. “On the damp earth the near side of the gate and well to the left. In the shelter of the lych, if that’s the way to put it. Very faint but I fancy they’re our old friends the crepe-soled shoes. Take a look.”

Fox did so. “Yes,” he said. “By gum, I think so.”

“More work for Bill Bailey and until he gets here the local copper can undisguise himself and take another turn at masterly inactivity. So far it’s one up to Artie.”

“Not a chance of anything on the steps.”

“I’m afraid, not a chance. Still — up we go.”

They climbed the steps, slowly and searchingly. Inside the church the organ suddenly blared and infant voices shrilled.

“Choir practice,” said Alleyn. “Damn. Not an inappropriate choice, though, when you come to think of it.”

The steps into the porch showed signs of the afternoon’s traffic. Alleyn took a look inside. The Vicar’s wife was seated at the organ with five litle girls and two little boys clustered round her. When she saw Alleyn her jaw dropped in the middle of “Onward.” He made a pacifying signal and withdrew. He and Fox walked round the church to Sybil Foster’s grave.

Bruce and Artie had taken trouble over finishing their job. The flowers — Bruce would certainly call them “floral tributes”—no longer lined the path but had been laid in meticulous order on the mound which they completely covered, stalks down, blossoms pointing up, in receding size. The cellophane covers on the professional offerings glistened in the sun and looked, Alleyn thought, awful. On the top, as a sort of baleful bon-bouche, was the great sheaf of red roses and carnations “From B.S.”

“It’s quite hopeless,” Alleyn said. “There must have been thirty or more people tramping round the place. If ever his prints were here they’ve been trodden out. We’d better take a look but we won’t find.”

Nor did they.

“Not to be fanciful,” Fox said. “As far as the foosteps go it’s like coming to the end of a trail. Room with the point marked X, gardener’s shed, broom recess, lych-gate and — nothing. It would have been appropriate, you might say, if they’d finished up for keeps at the graveside.”

Alleyn didn’t answer for a second or two.

“You do,” he then said, “get the oddest flights of fancy. It would, in a macabre sort of way, have been dramatically satisfactory.”

“If he did her, that is.”