“That’s what I say,” said Carlotta.

“Try and persuade Bruno of it! He was told not to and now see what’s come of it. That’s the way he’s thinking.”

“Silly little bastard,” said his brother uneasily.

Ricky said: “She’d made up her mind to do it before we got here. She’d have done it if Bruno had never appeared on the scene.”

“Yes, Ricky,” Julia said eagerly. “That’s just it. That’s the line we must take with Bruno. Do say all that to him, won’t you? How right you are.”

“There’ll be an inquest, of course, and it’ll come out,” Jasper said. “Bruno’s bit’ll come out.”

“Hell,” said Carlotta.

A car appeared, rounded the corner of the house and pulled up. The driver, a man in a tweed suit carrying a professional bag, got out.

“Doctor Carey?” Jasper asked.

“Blacker’s the name. I’m the vet. Where’s Cuth? What’s up, anyway?”

“I should explain,” Jasper said and was doing so when a second car arrived with a second man in a tweed suit carrying a professional bag. This was Dr. Carey. Jasper began again. When he had finished Dr. Carey said: “Where is she then?” and being told walked off down the horse paddock. “When the ambulance comes,” he threw over his shoulder, “will you show them where? I’ll see her uncle when I get back.”

“I’d better talk to Cuth,” said the vet. “This is a terrible thing. Where is he?”

As if in answer to a summons, Mr. Harkness appeared, like a woebegone Mr. Punch, over the half-door of a loose-box.

“Bob,” he said. “Bob, she’s dead lame. The sorrel mare, Bob. Bob, she’s dead lame and she’s killed Dulcie.”

And then the ambulance arrived.

Ricky stood in a corner of the yard, feeling extraneous to the scenes that followed. He saw the vet move off and Mr. Harkness, talking pretty wildly, make a distracted attempt to follow him and then stand wiping his mouth and looking from one to the other of the two retreating figures, each with its professional bag, rather like items in a surrealistic landscape.

Then Mr. Harkness ran across the yard and stopped the two ambulance men who were taking out a stretcher and canvas cover. Lamentations rolled out of him like sludge. The men seemed to calm him after a fashion and they listened to Jasper when he pointed the way. But Mr. Harkness kept interrupting and issuing his own instructions. “You can’t miss it,” he kept saying. “Straight across there. Where there’s the gap in the hedge. I’ll show you. You can’t miss it.”

“We’ve got it, thank you, sir,” they said. “Don’t trouble yourself. Take it easy.”

They walked away, carrying the stretcher between them. He watched them and pulled at his underlip and gabbled under his breath. Julia went to him. She was still very white and Ricky saw that her hand trembled. She spoke with her usual quick incisiveness.

“Mr. Harkness,” Julia said. “I’m going to take you indoors and give you some very strong black coffee and you’re going to sit down and drink it. Please don’t interrupt because it won’t make the smallest difference. Come along.”

She put her hand under his elbow and, still talking, he suffered himself to be led indoors.

Carlotta remained in the car. Jasper went over to talk to her. Bruno was nowhere to be seen.

It occurred to Ricky that this was a situation with which his father was entirely familiar. It would be at about this stage, he supposed, that the police car would arrive and his father would stoop over death in the form it had taken with Miss Harkness and would dwell upon that which Ricky turned sick to remember. Alleyn did not discuss his cases with his family, but Ricky, who loved him, often wondered how so fastidious a man could have chosen such work. And here he pulled up. “I must be barmy,” he told himself, “I’m thinking about it as if it were not a bloody accident but a crime.”

Presently Julia came out of the house.

“He’s sitting in his parlor,” she said, “drinking instant coffee with a good dollop of Scotch in it. I don’t know whether he’s spotted the Scotch and is pretending he hasn’t or whether he’s too bonkers to know.”

There was the sound of light wheels on gravel and around the corner of the house came a policeman on a bicycle.

“Good evening, all,” said the policeman dismounting. “What seems to be the trouble?”

Julia walked up to him with outstretched hand.

“You say it!” she cried. “You really do say it! How perfectly super.”

“Beg pardon, madam?” said the policeman, sizing her up.

“I thought it was only a joke thing about policemen asking what seemed to be the trouble and saying ‘Evening, all.’ ”

“It’s as good a thing to say as anything else,” reasoned the policeman.

“Of course it is,” she agreed warmly. “It’s a splendid thing to say.”

Jasper intervened. “My wife’s had a very bad shock. She made the discovery.”

“That’s right,” Julia said in a trembling voice. “My name’s Julia Pharamond and I made the discovery and I’m not quite myself.”

The policeman — he was a sergeant — had removed his bicycle clips and produced his notebook. He made a brief entry.

“Is that the case?” he said. “Mrs. J. Pharamond of L’Espérance, that would be, wouldn’t it? I’m sure I’m very sorry. It was you that rang the station, sir, was it?”

“No. I expect it was Dr. Carey. I rang him. Or perhaps it was the ambulance.”

“I see, sir. And I understand it’s a fatality. A horse-riding accident?” They made noises of assent. “Very sad, I’m sure,” said the sergeant. “Yes. So if I might just take a wee look-see.”

Once more Jasper pointed the way. The sergeant in his turn tramped down the horse paddock to the blackthorn hedge.

“You could do with some of that coffee and grog yourself, darling,” Jasper said.

“I did take a sly gulp. I can’t think why I rushed at Sergeant Dixon like that.”

“He’s not Sergeant Dixon.”

“There! You see! I’ll be calling him that to his face if I’m not careful. Too rude. I suppose you’re right. I suppose I’m like this on account of my taking a wee look-see.” She burst into sobbing laughter and Jasper took her in his arms.

He looked from Ricky to Carlotta. “We ought to get her out of this,” he said.

“Why don’t we all just go? We can’t do any good hanging about here,” said Carlotta.

“We can’t leave Mr. Harness,” Julia sobbed into her husband’s coat. “We don’t know what he mightn’t get up to. Besides Sergeant Thing will want me to make a statement and Ricky, too, I expect. That’s very important, isn’t it, Ricky? Taking statements on the scene of the crime.”

“What crime!” Carlotta exclaimed. “Have you gone dotty, Julia?”

“Where’s Bruno got to now?” Jasper asked.

“He went away to be sick,” said Carlotta. “I expect he’ll be back in a minute.”

Jasper put Julia into the back of the car and stayed beside her for some time. Bruno returned, looking ghastly and saying nothing. At last the empty landscape became reinhabited. First, along a lane beyond a distant hedge, appeared the vet leading the sorrel mare. They could see her head, pecking up and down, and the top of the vet’s tweed hat. Then, beyond the gap in the blackthorn hedge, partly obscured by leafy twigs, some sort of activity was seen to be taking place. Something was being half lifted, half hauled up the bank on the far side. It was Miss Harkness on the stretcher, decently covered.