“I’m afraid he was called out suddenly. Such are the duties of a village physician. He shouldn’t be very long. May I offer you tea?”

Burke declined.

“I rather expected you to have a housekeeper, or a servant of some sort,” he said, as Mrs. Allinson took a seat on a couch and waved him toward an easy chair.

“I gave her the night off,” said Mrs. Allinson. “Her name is Elsie Warden. She’s a local girl. Have you met Elsie, Inspector?”

Burke replied that he had not yet had that pleasure.

“You’ll like her,” said Mrs. Allinson. “A lot of men seem to like Elsie.”

Once again, Burke was aware of Mrs. Allinson’s distant amusement, an amusement that he believed she felt at his expense, although he was unable to guess why this might be so.

“I understand you were with her on the night Mal Trevors died.”

Mrs. Allinson raised her left eyebrow slowly, an action followed closely by the hint of a smile on the left side of her mouth, as though a wire extended from eye to jaw, linking their movements.

“I was ‘with’ my husband, Inspector,” she replied.

“Do you usually spend your Saturday nights at the village inn?”

“You sound almost disapproving, Inspector. Don’t you believe that ladies should socialize with their husbands? Doesn’t your good lady accompany you on the occasional evening?”

“I’m not married.”

“That is a shame,” said Mrs. Allinson. “I believe that a wife tames a man wonderfully. A good woman, like the alchemists of old, can make gold from the lead of most men.”

“Except the alchemists failed in their efforts,” said Burke. “Lead remained lead. I expect the late Mal Trevors might have been construed as a man of lead, don’t you think?”

“Mal Trevors was corrupted metal,” said Mrs. Allinson dismissively. “In my view, he is of more benefit to the earth now that he lies beneath it than he ever was when he walked upon it. There, at least, he will provide food for worms and nourishment for plants. Poor eating, admittedly, but sustenance for all that.”

Burke did not remark upon this display of feeling.

“It appears that few people have a good word to say about the late Mr. Trevors,” he said. “I expect it will be a short eulogy.”

“I believe succinct is the word, and any eulogy would be more than he deserves. Do you have any theories yet on how he might have died? They talk in the village of a wild animal, although my husband scoffs at the possibility.”

“We are keeping an open mind on the subject,” said Burke. “Nevertheless, we appear to have become sidetracked from the subject of Miss Elsie Warden. My understanding is that she was taken ill on the night that Mal Trevors died.”

“She had a moment of weakness,” said Mrs. Allinson. “I took care of her as best I could.”

“May I ask the cause?”

“You may ask Elsie Warden, if you choose. It’s not my place to tell you such details.”

“I thought it was only doctors who took the Hippocratic oath?”

“Women have their oaths too, Inspector, and I doubt if even Hippocrates himself could rival them for their fastness when they choose to be silent. I am curious, though, as to whom it was that spoke to you of Elsie Warden’s illness.”

“I’m afraid I can’t say,” replied Burke. “Policemen too have their secrets.”

“Never mind,” said Mrs. Allinson. “I expect I will find out soon enough.”

“Elsie Warden clearly trusts you a great deal, for one so recently arrived in the village.”

Mrs. Allinson tilted her head slightly and regarded Burke with renewed interest, rather like a cat that suddenly finds the mouse with which it is toying making an unexpected but ultimately doomed break for freedom, all the while with its tail pinned firmly beneath the feline’s paw.

“Elsie is a strong young woman,” answered Mrs. Allinson, with what Burke construed as a degree more caution than she had previously exercised. “This is not a village known for its tolerance of strong women.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” said Burke.

“They hanged witches here, many years ago,” said Mrs. Allinson. “Three women died at the heart of the village, and more languished in jail until they too began to die. The hanged women still bear the name of Underbury when they are spoken of, and their bodies lie buried beyond the cemetery walls.”

“The three stones,” said Burke.

“So you’ve seen them?”

“I didn’t know what they were, although I suspected that they marked graves of some kind,” said Burke. “I was surprised to see plots beyond the wall commemorated in any way.”

“I don’t believe the stones were placed there to commemorate three murdered women,” said Mrs. Allinson. “There is a cross carved in the underside of each stone, facing down. The superstition that caused their deaths followed them into the ground.”

“How do you know about the crosses?”

“The village records. In a small place like this, one has to entertain oneself as best one can.”

“Yet these are more enlightened times, and Underbury is no longer as it once was.”

“Would you have considered Mal Trevors an enlightened man, Inspector?”

“I never met him, except to look upon his remains. All I have is the testimony of others as to his character.”

“Why are you not married, Inspector?” asked Mrs. Allinson suddenly. “Why is there no woman in your life?”

Now it was Burke’s turn to answer cautiously.

“My job takes up much of my time,” he began, uncertain why he was even attempting to explain himself to this woman, except that in doing so he might learn more about her. “Perhaps too I have never met the right woman.”

Mrs. Allinson leaned forward slightly.

“I suspect,” she said, “that there is no ‘right’ woman for you. I’m not entirely sure that you like women, Inspector. I don’t mean in the physical sense,” she added quickly, “for I am sure that you have appetites like most men have. Rather, I mean that you don’t like them as beings. You perhaps distrust them, maybe even despise them. You don’t understand them, and that makes you fear them. Their appetites, their emotions, the workings of their bodies and their minds, all are alien to you, and you are afraid of them for that reason, just as the men of Underbury were afraid of the women whom they named ‘witches’ and hanged amid the winter snow.”

“I’m not afraid of women, Mrs. Allinson,” said Burke, a little more defensively than he had intended.

She smiled before she spoke again, and Burke was reminded of the faint smile on the face of Mrs. Paxton as she reassured her husband earlier that day. He heard the sound of footsteps approaching the house, their rhythm slightly distorted, and knew that Dr. Allinson had returned, yet he found himself staring only at Mrs. Allinson, caught in the depths of those green eyes.

“Really, Inspector, I don’t know if that’s true,” she said, apparently untroubled by any offense that she might be causing him. “In fact, I don’t believe that’s true at all.”

Dr. Allinson joined them and, after a suitable period had elapsed, his wife announced that she was retiring for the evening.

“I know I’ll be seeing you again, Inspector,” she said, as she left them. “I look forward to it.”

Burke spent another hour with Allinson, learning little that was new but content to bounce theories back and forth with someone whose knowledge of physiology was so intimate. Allinson offered to take him back to the village, but Burke declined, consenting only to a little brandy to warm him on the journey.

Burke almost instantly regretted taking the brandy once he set out for the village, for while it was undoubtedly warming, it clouded his head, and the cold was doing little to sober him. Twice he almost slipped before he had even made it to the road, and once upon it he kept to the center, fearing for his safety if he drew too close to the ditch. He had been walking for only a few minutes when he heard movement in the bushes to his right. He stopped and listened, but the presence in the undergrowth had also paused. Burke, like Stokes, was every inch the city dweller, and supposed that there must be a great many nocturnal animals in these parts, yet whatever was on the other side of the bushes was quite large. Perhaps it was a badger, he thought, or a fox. He moved on, the lamp raised, and felt something brush past his coat. He turned suddenly, and caught a flash of black as the creature entered the bushes to his left. It had crossed the road behind his back, so close to him that it had touched him as it went.