“God knows. We hope they won’t notice. But what a hope!”

“How about someone accidentally dropped a valuable in the open grave? Such as — er—”

“What?”

“I don’t know,” said Fox crossly. “A gold watch?”

“When?” Alleyn asked. “And whose gold watch?”

“Er. Well. Bruce’s? Anytime before the interment. I appreciate,” Fox confessed, “that it doesn’t sound too hot.”

“Go on.”

“I’m trying to picture it,” said Fox after a longish pause.

“And how are you getting on?”

“It’d be ludicrous.”

“Perhaps the best way will be to keep quiet and if they do notice tell them nothing. ‘The police declined to comment.’ ”

“The usual tarpaulin, et cetera,I suppose? I’ll lay it on, will I?”

“Do. My face, by the way, had better be the result of a turn-up with a gang outside the village. Where’s the sergeant?”

“Down at the ‘factory.’ He’s going to take a look at Daft Artie.”

Alleyn began to walk about the room, found this jolted his jaw and sat on his bed. “Br’er Fox,”, hesaid, “there’s that child. Prunella. We can’t possibly risk her hearing of it by accident.”

“The whole story?”

“Upon my soul,” Alleyn said after a long pause, “I’m not at all sure I won’t have recourse to your preposterous golden watch, or its equivalent. Look, I’ll drop you in the village and get you to call on the Vicar and tell him.”

“Some tarradiddle? Or what?” Fox asked.

“The truth but not the whole truth about what we hope to find. Hope!” said Alleyn distastefully. “What a word!”

“I see what you mean. Without wishing to pester—” Fox began. To his surprise and gratification Alleyn gave him a smack on the shoulder.

“All right, fuss-pot,” he said, “fat-faced but fit as a flea, that’s me. Come on.”

So he drove Fox to the parsonage and continued up Long Lane, passing the gap in the hedge. He looked up at the church and saw three small boys and two women come round from behind the chancel end. There was something self-conscious about the manner of the women’s gait and their unconvincing way of pointing out a slanting headstone to each other.

“There they go,” Alleyn thought. “It’s all round the village by now. Police up to something round the grave! We’ll have a queue for early doors tomorrow night.”

He drove past the turning into Stile Lane and on toward the road that led uphill to Mardling Manor on the left and Quintern Place on the right. Keys Lane, where Verity Preston lived, branched off to the left. Alleyn turned in at her gate and found her sitting under her lime trees doing The Times crossword.

“I came on an impulse,” he said. “I want some advice and I think you’re the one to give it to me. I don’t apologize because, after all, in its shabby way it’s a compliment. You may not think so, of course.”

“I can’t say until I’ve heard it, can I?” she said. “Come and sit down.”

When they were settled she said: “It’s no good being heavily tactful and not noticing your face, is it? What’s happened?”

“A boy and a brick, is my story.”

“Not a local boy, I hope.”

“Your gardener’s assistant.”

“Daft Artie!” Verity exclaimed. “I can’t believe it”

“Why can’t you?”

“He doesn’t do things like that. He’s not violent: only silly.”

“That’s what Bruce said. This may have been mere silliness. I may have just happened to be in the path of the trajectory. But I didn’t come for advice about Daft Artie. It’s about your goddaughter. Is she still staying at Mardling?”

“She went back there after the funeral. Now I come to think of it, she said that tomorrow she’s going to London for a week.”

“Good.”

“Why good?”

“This is not going to be pleasant for you, I know. I think you must have felt — you’d be very unusual if you hadn’t — relieved when it was all over, yesterday afternoon. Tidily put away and mercifully done with. There’s always that sense of release, isn’t there, however deep the grief? Prunella must have felt it, don’t you think?”

“I expect she did, poor child. And then there’s her youth and her engagement and her natural ebullience. She’ll be happy again. If it’s about her you want to ask, you’re not going to—” Verity exclaimed and stopped short.

“Bother her again? Perhaps. I would like to know what you think. But first of all,” Alleyn broke off. “This is in confidence. Very strict confidence. I’m sure you’ll have no objections at all to keeping it so for forty-eight hours.”

“Very well,” she said uneasily. “If you say so.”

“It’s this. It looks as if we shall be obliged to remove the coffin from Mrs. Foster’s grave for a very short time. It will be replaced within an hour at the most and no indignity will be done it. I can’t tell you any more than that. The question is: should Prunella be told? If she’s away in London there may be a fair chance she need never know, but villages being what they are and certain people, the Vicar for one, having to be informed, there’s always the possibility that it might come out. What do you think?”

Verity looked at him with a sort of incredulous dismay.

“I can’t think,” she said “It’s incomprehensible and grotesque and I wish you hadn’t told me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“One keeps forgetting — or I do — that this is a matter of somebody killing somebody whom one had known all one’s life. And that’s a monstrous thought.”

“Yes, of course it’s monstrous. But to us, I’m afraid, it’s all in the day’s work. But I am concerned about the young Prunella.”

“So of course am I. I am indeed,” said Verity, “and I do take your point. Do you think, perhaps, that Gideon Markos should be consulted? Or Nikolas? Or both?”

“Do you?”

“They’ve — well, they’ve kind of taken over, you see. Naturally. She’s been absorbed into their sort of life and will belong to it.”

“But she’s still looking to you, isn’t she? I noticed it yesterday at the funeral.”

“Is there anything,” Verity found herself saying, “that you don’t notice?” Alleyn did not answer.

“Look,” Verity said. “Suppose you — or I if you like — should tell Nikolas Markos and suggest that they take Prue away? He’s bought a yacht, he informs me. Not the messing-about-in-boats sort but the jet-set, Riviera job. They could waft her away on an extended cruise.”

“Even plutocratic yachts are not necessarily steamed up and ready to sail at the drop of a hat.”

“This one is.”

“Really?”

“He happened to mention it,” said Verity, turning pink. “He’s planning a cruise in four weeks’ time. He could put it forward.”

“Are you invited?”

“I can’t go,” she said shortly. “I’ve got a first night coming up.”

“You know, your suggestion has its points. Even if someone does talk about it, long after it’s all over and done with, that’s not going to be as bad as knowing it is going to be done now and that it’s actually happening. Or is it?”

“Not nearly so bad.”

“And in any case,” Alleyn said, more to himself than to her, “she’s going to find out — ultimately. Unless I’m all to blazes.” He stood up. “I’ll leave it to you,” he said. “The decision. Is that unfair?”

“No. It’s good of you to concern yourself. So I talk to Nikolas. Is that it?”

To Verity’s surprise he hesitated for a moment.

“Could you, perhaps, suggest he put forward the cruise because Prunella’s had about as much as she can take and would be all the better for a complete change of scene: now?”

“I suppose so. I don’t much fancy asking a favour.”

“No? Because he’ll be a little too delighted to oblige?”

“Something like that,” said Verity.

ii

The next day dawned overcast with the promise of rain. By late afternoon it was coming down inexorably.

“Set in solid,” Fox said, staring out of the station window.

“In one way a hellish bore and in another an advantage.”