'This is all his clothing?'

The mother paused before answering. 'Yes,' she said. And then, after a few seconds, 'Apart from what he has on.'

Well of course, thought Parsons, I didn't believe he went to work naked. What a queer statement. 'I need to see his knife,' he said casually.

'His knife?' She looked at him wonderingly. 'You mean, the knife he eats with?'

'No, his knife. Every young man has a knife.'

'My son is a solicitor,' said the Vicar rather sharply. 'He works in an office. He does not sit around whittling sticks.'

'I do not know how many times I have been told that your son is a solicitor. I am well aware of that. As I am of the fact that every young man has a knife.'

After some whispering, the daughter went away and returned with a short, stubby item which she handed over defiantly. 'This is his botany spud,' she said.

Campbell saw at a glance that the item could not possibly have inflicted the sort of damage he had recently witnessed. Nevertheless, he pretended to considerable interest, taking the spud over to the window and turning it in the light.

'We've found these, sir.' A constable was holding out a case containing four razors. One of them seemed to be wet. Another had red stains on the back.

'Those are my razors,' said the Vicar quickly.

'One of them is wet.'

'No doubt because I shaved myself with it barely an hour ago.'

'And your son – what does he shave with?'

There was a pause. 'One of these.'

'Ah. So they are not, strictly speaking, your razors, sir?'

'On the contrary. This has always been my set of razors. I have owned them for twenty years or more, and when it became time for my son to shave, I allowed him to use one.'

'Which he still does?'

'Yes.'

'You do not trust him with razors of his own?'

'He does not need razors of his own.'

'Now why should he not be allowed razors of his own?' Campbell aired it as a half-question, waiting to see if anyone chose to pick it up. No, he thought not. There was something slightly queer about the family, not that he could put his finger on it. They weren't being uncooperative; but at the same time he felt them less than straightforward.

'He was out last night, your son.'

'Yes.'

'How long for?'

'I'm not really sure. An hour, perhaps more. Charlotte?'

Again, the wife seemed to take an unconscionable time considering a simple question. 'One and a half, one and three-quarters,' she finally whispered.

Time enough and plenty to get to the field and back, as Campbell had just proved. 'And when would this be?'

'Between about eight and nine thirty,' answered the Vicar, even though Parsons' question had been addressed to his wife. 'He went to the bootmaker.'

'No, I meant after that.'

'After that, no.'

'But I asked if he went out in the night and you said that he did.'

'No, Inspector, you asked if he went out last night, not in the night.'

Campbell nodded. He was no fool, this clergyman. 'Well, I should like to see his boots.'

'His boots?'

'Yes, the boots he went out in. And show me which trousers he was wearing.'

These were dry, but now that Campbell looked at them again, he saw black mud around the bottoms. The boots, when produced, were also encrusted with mud, and were still damp.

'I found this too, sir,' said the Sergeant who brought the boots. 'Feels damp to me.' He handed over a blue serge coat.

'Where did you find this?' The Inspector passed his hand over the coat. 'Yes, it's damp.'

'Hanging by the back door just above the boots.'

'Let me feel that,' said the Vicar. He ran a hand down a sleeve and said, 'It's dry.'

'It's damp,' repeated Campbell, thinking, And what's more, I'm a policeman. 'So who does this belong to?'

'To George.'

'To George? I asked you to show me all his clothing. Without exception.'

'We did' – the mother this time. 'All this is what I think of as his clothing. That's just an old house-coat he never wears.'

'Never?'

'Never.'

'Does anyone else wear it?'

'No.'

'How very mysterious. A coat that nobody wears yet which hangs usefully by the back door. Let me start again. This is your son's coat. When did he last wear it?'

The parents looked at one another. Eventually the mother said, 'I have no idea. It is too shabby for him to go out in, and he has no cause to wear it in the house. Perhaps he wore it for gardening.'

'Now let me see,' said Campbell, holding the coat to the window. 'Yes, there's a hair here. And… another. And… yes, another. Parsons?'

The Sergeant took a look and nodded.

'Let me see, Inspector.' The Vicar was allowed to inspect the coat. 'That's not a hair. I don't see any hairs.'

Now mother and daughter joined in, tugging at the blue serge, like in a bazaar. He waved them away and laid the coat on a table. 'There,' he said, pointing at the most obvious hair.

'That's a roving,' said the daughter. 'It's not a hair, it's a roving.'

'What's a roving?'

'A thread, a loose thread. Anyone can see that, anyone who's ever sewn anything.'

Campbell had never sewn in his life, but he could recognize panic in a young woman's voice.

'And look at these stains, Sergeant.' On the right sleeve there were two separate patches, one whitish, one darkish. Neither he nor Parsons spoke, but they were each thinking the same. Whitish, the pony's saliva; darkish, the pony's blood.

'I told you, it's just his old house-coat. He would never go out in it. Certainly not to the bootmaker's.'

'Then why is it damp?'

'It's not damp.'

The daughter came up with another explanation useful to her brother. 'Perhaps it just feels damp to you because it was hanging by the back door.'

Unimpressed, Campbell gathered up the coat, the boots, the trousers and other clothing identified as having been worn the previous evening; he also took the razors. The family was instructed not to make contact with George until given police permission. He stationed one man outside the Vicarage, and ordered the others to quarter the grounds. Then he returned with Parsons to the field, where Mr Lewis had completed his examination and sought leave to destroy the pony. The surgeon's report would be with Campbell the following day. The Inspector asked him to cut a piece of skin from the dead animal. PC Cooper was to take this, along with the clothes, to Dr Butter in Cannock.

At Wyrley station Markew reported that the lawyer had curtly refused his request to wait. Campbell and Parsons therefore took the first available train – the 9.53 – into Birmingham.

'Strange family,' said the Inspector, as they were crossing the canal between Bloxwich and Walsall.

'Very strange.' The Sergeant chewed his lip for a while. 'If you don't mind my saying, sir, they seemed honest enough in themselves.'

'I know what you mean. It's something the criminal classes would do well to study.'

'What's that, sir?'

'Lying no more than you need to.'

'That'll be the day.' Parsons chuckled. 'Still, you have to feel sorry for them, in a way. Happening to that sort of family. A black sheep, if you'll pardon the expression.'

'I certainly will.'

Shortly after eleven o'clock the two policemen presented themselves at 54 Newhall Street. It was a small, two-room office, with a woman secretary guarding the solicitor's door. George Edalji sat passively behind his desk, looking ill.

Campbell, alert for any sudden movement from the man, said, 'We don't want to search you here, but you must let me have your pistol.'

Edalji looked at him blankly. 'I have no pistol.'

'What's that, then?' The Inspector gestured at a long, shiny object on the desk before him.

The solicitor sounded intensely weary as he spoke. 'That, Inspector, is the key to the door of a railway carriage.'