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this gypsy might have murdered Kerensa Morgan just to get hold of a baby for someone?’
    â€˜I’m not suggesting anything, I’m just telling you what I heard happened to the Dawe girl’s baby, as you asked me. It was rumoured at the time that it wasn’t the first unwanted baby this particular gypsy had got rid of for someone in trouble – and I believe he’s still around.’
    Amos thought about what Jemima had told him. If Kerensa had been killed by a man with a good reason to murder her, but who could not bring himself to murder a baby – possibly even his baby – it could have been a way to dispose of Albert Morgan.
    â€˜I don’t know, Jemima, it’s one thing to take a baby from a girl who’s got herself in trouble, but something quite different when it means getting involved with murder. Every gypsy I’ve ever known would be far too astute for that.’
    â€˜I suppose it would depend how much money he was offered,’ Jemima retorted. ‘Anyway, as I said, it was probably just gossip.’
    â€˜Nevertheless, it might be worthwhile having a chat with this gypsy, do you know his name?’
    â€˜I can’t say I ever heard it mentioned – and you won’t be able to get it from poor, simple Annie. She hanged herself in her father’s barn only months after all this was supposed to have happened. Bessie Harris is the one to speak to. She still lives at North Hill and delivers most of the babies hereabouts … both those that are wanted and those that are not.’

Chapter 5
    W HILST AMOS WAS interviewing Jemima, Tom was having a frustrating time at Trelyn Hall, where Horace Morgan had an office at the rear of the great house.
    After dismissing Tom’s words of sympathy with an impatient gesture, Morgan demanded, ‘Have you got anywhere yet with your search for Albert?’
    â€˜We have a great many men working on it and are pursuing a number of lines of enquiry, Mr Morgan, but I’m here to fill in some of the background of both you and the late Mrs Morgan, to see if we can find any possible connection with the tragedy you’ve suffered.’
    â€˜I suppose that’s a long-winded way of saying “no”,’ Morgan commented, curtly. ‘Well, you’re not going to find him here so you’d be better out there with the others.’
    The estate steward showed evidence of having had very little sleep since the murder of his wife and the inexplicable disappearance of his baby son. Tom would normally have shown great sympathy towards the man, but he found it difficult, and Morgan was a suspect and, so far, the only one they had.
    â€˜I’ll try not to take up any more of your time than is absolutely necessary, Mr Morgan, but we all want to discover what happened up there on the moor, and why. Can you think of anyone
who might have had any serious grudge against either you or your wife? Is there anything you can think of that might have happened before you came to Cornwall, perhaps, that might throw any light on what has happened here?’
    For just a moment Tom thought Morgan hesitated, as though he might have thought of something, then the estate steward shook his head vigorously. ‘Nothing at all. Besides, as far as I know nobody I’ve ever known is even aware I am working in Cornwall. I have no relatives and there was no reason for me to tell anybody else.’
    â€˜How about before then … when you were in India?’
    Morgan was startled now. ‘How did you know I had been in India – and how can that possibly have anything to do with what has happened here? Anyway, it was so long ago everyone I knew there will have forgotten me.’
    At that moment the door to the steward’s office opened and a short, dapper man with a ruddy face and a bristling moustache entered the room. He was dressed for riding and Tom immediately recognized him as Colonel Trethewy, magistrate