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hesitate to ring me at any time. Where are you staying?’
    â€˜The Fish Inn,’ said Fen.
    These words produced, unexpectedly enough, a marked change in Mr Judd. A new light appeared in his eyes – a light which Fen could not but associate with the more disreputable antics of satyrs in classic woods. In tones of reverence he said:
    â€˜The Fish Inn. . . . Tell me, have you come across that beautiful girl?’
    â€˜The blonde?’
    â€˜The blonde.’
    â€˜Well, yes. She brought me my early morning tea.’
    Mr Judd drew in his breath sharply.
    â€˜She brought you your tea ,’ he said, somehow investing Fen’s prosaic statement with the glamour of a phallic rite. ‘And was she wearing that powder-blue frock?’
    â€˜I can’t really remember,’ said Fen vaguely. ‘It was something tight-fitting, I think.’
    â€˜ Tight-fitting ,’ Mr Judd repeated with awe. He looked at Fen as he might have looked at a man who had lit a fire with bank-notes. ‘Do you know, I think she’s the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen. . . . Do you think she reads my books? I’ve never dared ask her.’
    â€˜I doubt if she’s intelligent enough to read anyone’s books.’
    Mr Judd sighed. ‘It’s just as well, perhaps,’ he said, ‘because she mightn’t like them. . . .’ He veered from the topic with obvious reluctance. ‘Well, well, I mustn’t keep you.’
    â€˜Don’t forget your revolver,’ said Fen.
    â€˜No, I’d better not do that. Apart from anything else, I haven’t got a licence for it.’
    â€˜And by the way – what is the point of throwing it into the pond and pulling it out again?’
    â€˜That,’ Mr Judd explained, ‘is because the murderer wants to give the impression that he left it there at the time of the murder, and only retrieved it a good deal later , for fear of its discovery. The detective, of course, finds it somewhere quite different.’
    â€˜But why should the murderer want to give that impression?’
    Mr Judd became evasive. ‘I think you’d better read the book when it comes out. I’ll send you a copy. . . . You realize about the coat, of course. It belongs to the victim, and the murderer wears it inside out so that when he carries the body the coat gets bloodstains on it where they ought to be, on the inside .’
    â€˜Yes,’ said Fen. ‘Yes, I’d grasped that.’
    â€˜Very quick of you. Well, you’ll let me know when you can pay me a visit, won’t you? I shall look forward to it, look forward to it enormously. I live a very solitary life, because there’s no one intelligent to talk to in Sanford Angelorum except the Rector, and his interests are confined to theology and birds and gardening, about all of which his information is tiresomely complete. Yes, you must certainly come and have a meal, and I shall be interested to hear any criticisms you may have to make about my books. . . . Yes. Well, good-bye for the present.’
    â€˜Good-bye,’ said Fen, shaking him by the hand. ‘I’ve very much enjoyed meeting you, and I hope I didn’t interrupt your test.’
    â€˜Not in the least,’ Mr Judd assured him. ‘All I had left to do was to take the body into the village and put it on top of the War Memorial. . . . Well, then, I shall hope to be seeing you.’

CHAPTER 5
    T HEY parted cordially, Mr Judd to retrieve his revolver and Fen to return to the village, full of regret at having missed seeing Mr Judd hoisting an imaginary corpse on to the War Memorial, and speculating on Mr Judd’s murderer’s motives in performing this laborious and public act.
    He had reached the point provisionally identified as Sweeting’s Farm, and had worked out a rambling, intricate theory about Mr Judd’s murderer which