“Poor silly lady! Where, I need to know, did she come by her recipe? Perhaps she left it in the other pocket.” Joe pulled a hopeless face. “Well, we ought to check.”

“Good lord! What the hell’s this?… These?”

He placed a folded sheet of paper on the floor and opened it up.

“Shopping list? Recipe? ‘Cummin … Rose Mary …’ No, I never saw that handwriting before, sir. Scruffy. Pencil. Not what you’d call educated, is it?”

“Just lists the attractants. No nastiness here. But I’ll show you something that is quite stomach-churning. The second thing Grace had left in the pocket for us to find.” He placed it carefully beside the note.

“Chicken’s wish-bone? That’s for good luck, sir.”

A memory had stirred. Joe had heard of these things but he’d never seen one before. “No. The opposite of good luck. This is magic,” he said. “Black magic. It’s bone all right but it’s from a toad. Method: First catch your toad. Then you kill it and pound the flesh to a pulp and chuck it into a running stream at midnight. Of course, the flesh and most of the bones float away downstream with the current, but one bone—this one—perversely, swirls away upstream. This is the one you want. The piece that’s going to give you magic powers. Over horses. Or warts. Or sharp-tongued mothers-in-law. They do a similar bit of jiggery-pokery with frogs and ant-hills in India …”

Ben was prepared to scoff. “Floats upstream? Naw! How could it?” Gingerly, he picked it up and smoothed it between his fingers. “Light as a dry leaf. That scooped bit looks something like the bottom of a toy boat. That wouldn’t sink, but it would go along with the current.”

“Look at the shape. It’s like one of those Australian weapons that turn and fly back at you—a boomerang—don’t you think? Some winged things do move apparently against the forces of Nature as we know them—winged sycamore seeds … aeroplanes, for goodness sake! I don’t believe in magic, either, Ben. I think the shape must be special. No time to experiment but if we popped this onto the rippling surface of a stream it might well be caught by some rule of … shall we say … aquadynamics and sweep off in the opposite direction to what you’d expect. It would be fun to try. But the men who own one of these things don’t want to test out, cast light and explain. No—they want to believe without question and work in the dark. They also seek power by frightening and manipulating the credulous. ‘Toadmen,’ they call themselves where I come from.”

“Toadmen? I’ve heard of them. Down toward Stowmarket, there’s toadmen. Or used to be. Can’t say as I’ve heard of ’em since I were a lad.”

“Not since they were all given the keys to a shining new tractor,” Joe said, smiling. He took the piece of bone, held it between his finger and thumb and twisted it as he would have turned the starting key of a motor. “There’s more power in the turn of a piece of steel in a Fordson tractor engine than in a brittle bit of bone working inside a darkened mind. But, evidently, there’s still one hereabouts who has the knowledge—and the malice—to pass on this evil piece of equipment to an unsuspecting woman and cause her death.” Joe glanced at the open cupboard door. “We’ll just put it back where we found it for the moment. It seems to be safe there. Did you look in the bottom? Anything else Grace left behind for us to see?”

Ben took a slender house-man’s torch from his belt and shone it around the depths of the cupboard. “Yes, there is. Not much but we ought perhaps to take a look.”

He brought out four blue paper chemist’s bags and put them in front of Joe. “All empty. Shall I read the labels? Well, well! Cummin, coriander, cinnamon and …”

“Fenugreek,” Joe finished for him. “Those bags contained the substance she thought she was marching into the stables armed with. We’ll lock those up in the cupboard again too. But where did she get the bate that caused her death? You can’t summon up a stew of stoat’s liver and rabbit’s blood overnight.”

“G. R. Harrison, Purveyor of Pharmaceuticals. Estd. 1882, it says on the labels. You going to arrest him?”

“For the crime of purveying curry spices to a rich household? No, I don’t think so. Mr. Harrison is about as guilty as the horse in all of this. Which is to say—not in the slightest. But there is someone lurking, someone with very evil intent, working through his own agenda. I wonder how far along he’s got … and whether he can hear us scrabbling down the rabbit hole after him.”

CHAPTER 18

Joe was awake again at five. He bathed, shaved and dressed himself in the hooray-hurrah outfit of flannels, linen shirt and Hermès cravat that he felt a summer Sunday morning in the country called for. He had no wish to undertake his next task looking bleary and unkempt in a dressing gown. ‘Never frighten the upstairs maid’ was another rule of country house living he abided by.

He heard her coming down the corridor at six o’clock precisely and nipped out the moment she drew level with his door. A quick: “Shh! It’s only the Police, miss!” and he’d tugged her, still clutching her dustpan and brush, into his room and shut the door.

He held his Scotland Yard warrant card under her startled eyes to calm or at least distract her. “I do beg your pardon! Are you the maid who normally takes care of the rooms in this guest wing?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Were you here on duty in April when the mistress was killed?”

“I was, sir.”

“Then I have a few questions for you. This will only take a moment and then you may return to your duties. What is your name?”

“Rose, sir. Rose Nicholls.”

“Known to Ben as ‘Rosie’?” Joe smiled. At last, one thing was going in his favour. “Rose, tell me—the morning of the awful event in April—did you tidy out all the rooms along this corridor?”

“Yes, sir. Nothing interfered with the routine. The guests were still here, all of them, and their rooms had to be seen to.”

“Were you also responsible for the guest in the Old Nursery?”

“I had that duty, sir.” Had he imagined that the reply came less swiftly and was accompanied by a slight upturning of the nose? The very pert nose. Ben had omitted to say how pretty Rosie was.

“The occupant of the room—Miss Joliffe—was she still in residence?”

“She was. Still abed. Fast asleep when I drew the curtains back. She’d asked me to wake her at six with a cup of tea. No breakfast required. No help with dressing. A very independent young lady. Good as gold, very polite and no trouble. She left me half a crown on the mantelpiece and her copies of True Confessions.”

“All as normal, then?”

The response came more slowly. “Yes, sir.” The eyes narrowed and looked away as she added, “No harm done, I’m sure, sir.”

“Right. That’s enough pussy-footing about, Rose. I want you to tell me what exactly was not normal about that room when you did it out. I have to tell you that Ben and I inspected it last night. I’m pretty sure I know what went on in there—I would be interested to hear your confirmation. And—hear this, Rosie—I usually work in the stews of East London. You can say nothing that could possibly shock me.”

He listened to her brief account. She wasted no time on unnecessary detail or speculation and he realised that she’d rehearsed this speech in her mind before delivering it. She’d clearly been concerned and remained puzzled by what she’d discovered. Joe, on the other hand, believed he now had a clear idea of what had gone on that April night. He allowed himself a grim smile. For possibly the first time ever in what had been a seven-year struggle with Dorcas, he thought he had the advantage of her. What would she choose to feed him? Truth or lies?

“Rosie, your information is secure with me. Thank you for your openness and your clarity. I’ve heard less concise speeches from King’s Counsel in court at the Old Bailey!”