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be responsible for their arrest and find that it is all a mistake. There isn’t anything to connect them with the tramp except that they were on the river the same night.”
    â€œNot quite true, miss,” said Cribb. “There’s something else I haven’t mentioned yet. Before I called at your college this morning, I made another call, to the mortuary at Henley. They wheeled the body in for me to look at—begging your pardon, miss. I saw the bruises the local force identified, mainly round the shoulders and neck, as I mentioned. Then something else took my eye. Some marks on the right leg, the fleshy part of the calf, two small crescents of marks facing each other. The skin was broken, but there couldn’t have been much bleeding, so it’s no wonder the local lads missed it on a rather hairy leg. A dog bite, miss, made by a dog of medium size, I’d say. Could be a fox terrier.”

CHAPTER
    8
    A slight hassle at Henley—Transformation scene—All aboard
    T HEY CALLED AT H ENLEY police station, as Cribb loftily explained, to receive the latest intelligence on the case from the local force. “Although it’s debatable which is the local force. Three counties are involved. The body was found at Hurley and that’s in Berkshire. They took it to the nearest mortuary at Henley, which is Oxfordshire. Constable Hardy here, and you, Miss Shaw, come from Buckinghamshire. So which county force do you think should take the case? The three chief constables were about to settle it with pistols when some sharp lad remembered that the Thames itself is under Metropolitan jurisdiction, so they gave the job to Scotland Yard. Convenient for everyone but Thackeray and me.”
    The desk sergeant was seated against a backcloth of notices describing the penalties for a range of offences from furious riding to harbouring thieves. Harriet thought him admirably calm for one in such dangerous employment. The unconcern was apparent in his responses to Sergeant Cribb. “Yes, we combed the riverbank as you asked, right along the Reach as far as Hambleden and we might as well have saved our perishing time. Twenty men diverted from their normal duties! Only Scotland Yard or Drury Lane would dare to stage a pantomime like that.”
    â€œYou found nothing?” Cribb tersely asked.
    â€œNot so much as a perishing duck. No abandoned boat and nobody who remembered hiring one to three men and a dog. I hear that the Buckinghamshire lads have done no better. Don’t know how many men they were using, but it’s the devil of a lot of public money to go on a dead tramp.”
    â€œA set of killers,” said Cribb.
    â€œAll right. A set of—”
    â€œâ€”who might very likely kill again if nobody stops ’em. I haven’t time nor patience to bandy words with you, Sergeant. Are the things ready as I asked?”
    The desk sergeant gave a grudging nod.
    â€œIn that case,” said Cribb, turning to Harriet, “I shall be compelled to commit you to this officer’s care for a few minutes, Miss Shaw. The constables and I have something to attend to that won’t take long, but can’t be done in the presence of a lady. I suggest you sit behind the door there. You might be offered a cup of tea if there’s enough public money left to pay for it.”
    So she sat in the chair Cribb had indicated and listened to the sergeant complaining that if the duty constable hadn’t been redeployed to the perishing riverbank there would be somebody to make the perishing tea. She got a cup nonetheless and the dissent was presently cut short by the entrance of a butcher whose plaster pig had been removed from outside his shop by two small boys. It took the sergeant eleven minutes by the clock over the door to establish the facts and reassure the butcher that as soon as the perishing station was back to strength an investigation would be put in train.
    Then Cribb and his two