Patrick was sitting in a dinghy alongside the fisherman’s jetty, looking aloof and disinterested. Wally made up to a new pair of sightseers.

“That was very nice of you,” Alleyn said to Jenny. “And I’m more than obliged.”

“I hated it. Mr. Alleyn, he really isn’t responsible. You can see what he’s like.”

“Do you think he threw the stones at Miss Emily the other night?”

She said very unhappily, “Yes.”

“So do I.”

“But nothing else. I’m sure: nothing more than that.”

“You may be right. I’d be very grateful, by the way, if you’d keep the whole affair under your hat. Will you do that?”

“Yes,” she said slowly. “All right. Yes, of course, if you say so.”

“Thank you very much. One other thing. Have you any idea who the Green Lady could have been?”

Jenny looked startled. “No, I haven’t. Somehow or another, I’ve sort of forgotten to wonder. She may not have been real at all.”

“What did he say about her?”

“Only that she was very pretty and her hair shone in the sun. And that she said his warts would be all gone.”

“Nothing else?”

“No — nothing.”

“Has he got that sort of imagination — to invent her?”

Jenny said slowly, “I don’t think he has.”

“I don’t think so either.”

“Not only that,” Jenny said. “He’s an extraordinarily truthful little boy. He never tells lies — never.”

“That’s an extremely valuable piece of information,” Alleyn said. “Now, go and placate your young man.”

“I’ll be blowed if I do. He can jolly well come off it,” she rejoined, but Alleyn thought she was not altogether displeased with Patrick. He watched her climb down into the dinghy. It ducked and bobbed towards the far point of the bay. She looked up and waved to him. Her tawny hair shone in the bright sunshine.

“That’s a pleasing young lady,” said Coombe. “What did you make of the lad?”

“We’re not much further on, are we?”

“Aren’t we, though? He as good as said he threw the stones that evening, and what’s more he as good as let on his dad had told him to keep his mouth shut.”

“Yes. Yes, it looked like that, didn’t it?”

“Well, then?”

“He wouldn’t say anything about the rock. He says he saw Miss Pride leave and return. The figure that returned may have been Miss Cost.”

“Ah!” said Coombe with satisfaction.

“Dr. Mayne, you remember, noticed Wally dodging about the road up to the spring soon after half past seven. Miss Pride saw him at much the same time. Miss Pride got back to the pub at eight o’clock. She didn’t encounter Miss Cost. Say the seven o’clock service ended about ten to eight — we’ll have to find out about that — it would mean that Miss Cost would get to the causeway — when?”

“About eight.”

“Just after Miss Pride had gone indoors. And to the spring?”

“Say ten or a quarter past.”

“And I found her body at ten past nine.”

Coombe said: “The kid would have had time, between 7:30 and 8:15, to let himself into the enclosure and take cover behind that boulder. Before she came.”

“Why should he do that? He thought Miss Pride had gone. He saw her go. Why should he anticipate her return?”

“Just one of his silly notions.”

“Yes,” Alleyn said. “One of his silly notions. Put that boy in the witness-box, and we’d look as silly as he does. If he’s at the end of this case, Coombe, we’ll only get a conviction on factual evidence, not on anything the poor little devil says. Unmistakable prints of his boots behind the boulder for instance.”

“You saw the ground. A mess.” Coombe reddened. “I suppose I slipped up there. We were on the place before I thought.”

“It’s so easy,” Alleyn said, saving his face for him. “Happens to the best of us.”

“It was all churned up, wasn’t it? Almost as if…?”

“Yes?”

“Now I come to think of it, almost as if, before the Doctor and I went up, someone had kind of scuffled it.”

“Yes. Behind the boulder and the trace of the rock. There was a flat bit of stone — did you notice? — lying near the bank. Muddy edge. It might have been used to obliterate prints.”

“I suppose,” Coombe said, “in a quiet type of division like this, you get a bit rusty. I could kick myself. At my time of life!”

“It may not amount to much. After all, we can isolate your prints and Dr. Mayne’s from the rest.”

“Well, yes. Yes, you can do that, all right. But still…!”

Alleyn looked at his watch. It was just on noon. He suggested that they return to the mainland and call on the Rector. The tide was coming in and they crossed the channel by dinghy. There was Alleyn’s car by the jetty, with his luggage in it. If things had gone according to plan, he would have been halfway to Troy by now.

They left it where it stood. The rectory was a five minutes’ walk along the front. It stood between a small and charming Norman church and Dr. Mayne’s Convalescent Home: a pleasant late-Georgian house with the look, common to parsonages, of being exposed to more than its fair share of hard usage.

“It was a poorish parish, this,” Coombe said, “but with the turn things have taken over the last two years, it’s in better shape. The stipend’s gone up, for one thing. A lot of people that reckon they’ve benefitted by the spring make donations. It’d surprise you to know the amounts that are put into the restoration fund boxes. I’m People’s Warden,” he added; “should have been there myself at 10:30, for the family service. The Rector’ll be back home by now. It’s his busy day, of course.”

They found Mrs. Carstairs briskly weeding. She wore a green linen dress and her hair, faded yellow, made an energetic sort of halo round her head. Her churchgoing hat, plastic raincoat, gloves and prayer-book were scattered in a surrealistic arrangement, along the border. When Alleyn was introduced she shook hands briskly and said she supposed he’d come about this dreadful business and wanted to see her husband — who was, of course, appalled.

“He’s in the study,” she said to Coombe. “Those accounts from the dry-rot people are all wrong again, Mr. Coombe. And the Mayor suggests a combined memorial service. But we don’t quite think — however.…”

“I’d really like a word with you, if I may,” Alleyn said. “We’re trying to trace Miss Cost’s movements early this morning.”

“Oh, dear! Yes. Well, of course.”

She confirmed Dr. Mayne’s account. Miss Cost had attended the first service at seven o’clock, and before church they had met at the gate.

“She was in a great fuss, poor thing, because of my necklace.”

“Your necklace?”

“Yes. It’s really rather a nice old one. Pinchbeck and paste, but long and quite good. I lent with reluctance, but she was so keen to have it because of the glitter; and then, of course, what must her great Cissy do but drop it at the first thunderclap and, in the stampede, nobody remembered. I said we’d retrieve it after church, or why not let Cissy go? But no: she made a great to-do, poor Miss Cost (when one thinks) and insisted that she would go herself. She was rather an on-goer: conversationally, if you know what I mean: on and on, and I wanted to go into church and say my prayers and it was pouring. So then she saw Dr. Mayne and she was curious to know if it was Mrs. Tretheway’s twins, though of course in the event it wasn’t twins (that was all nonsense), so I’m afraid I left her to tackle him, as she clearly was dying to do. And after church I saw her streak off through the rain before anyone could offer. Isn’t it dreadful?” Mrs. Carstairs asked energetically. “Well, isn’t it?…Adrian! Can you spare a moment, dear?”

“Coming.”

The Rector, wearing his cassock, emerged through French windows. He said how extraordinary it was that Alleyn should have been at Portcarrow; added that they were lucky to have him, and then became doubtful and solemn.