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“may I present my brother, Professor Osborne? Lady John’s sister, Ozzy.”
    â€œHow do you do, Professor.”
    â€œI do very well indeed, I thank you kindly. Being forced to forage for my own tea, since service in the Vicarage is quite as ineffectual as the services in my brother’s church, ha ha, I found a splendid gingerbread loaf, newly baked.”
    â€œFor the WI committee’s tea tomorrow,” said Mr. Osborne gloomily.
    â€œWas it? One must hope the ladies have small appetites. I suppose I shall catch what-for from your missus,” the Professor said, with a delighted grin for his own descent into the vernacular. “Cheer up, Ozzy. You missed your tea, that’s why you’re feeling down in the mouth, I dare say.”
    â€œGresham gave me tea. Oh, drat! Ozzy, don’t mention to Adelaide that I called on Gresham.”
    â€œMy dear Ozzy, you are assured of my discretion. Now, if you will excuse me, my dear young lady, I shall continue my stroll. I find a little exercise after a meal extremely beneficial to the digestion.” And, raising his absurd cricket cap, he toddled off.
    â€œI do beg your pardon, Miss Dalrymple,” said the vicar. “It was very wrong of me to utter an expletive in the presence of a lady. Indeed, a man of the cloth ought not to use such language under any provocation.”
    â€œYou could hardly have chosen a milder word,” Daisy reassured him. “If it’s a sin, it’s not much of one.”
    She felt sorry for him, caught between his overbearing wife and his subversive brother. No wonder he was despondent. His round, pink face was the wrong shape for melancholy; the best it could manage was a lugubrious cast difficult to take seriously. How painful to look merely doleful when what one felt was desperation.

    For, momentarily, something very like desperation peered like a caged creature from the vicar’s eyes.
    Had he received one of those beastly anonymous letters? Even a clergyman could have something to hide, especially as the clergy were held to a higher standard of conduct.
    If he was Johnnie’s fellow victim, Daisy wanted to know. The more letters she read, or at least heard about, the more clues to the identity of the Poison Pen. Even if he was not himself a victim, he could be aware of others. Johnnie had felt he’d go mad if he couldn’t tell someone, and had chosen Daisy to confide in. The vicar just might be equally anxious for a confidant.
    Daisy could not quite bring herself to ask him outright whether he knew of the letters. She decided to keep him in conversation for a while and hope something useful might emerge. For a start, she was dying of curiosity …
    â€œDon’t worry,” she said encouragingly, “I’ll be sure not to mention your call on Gresham—Mr. Gresham, is it?—to Mrs. Osborne.”
    â€œI’m afraid you must think it very odd. The fact is, Amos Gresham is an unregenerate atheist.”
    â€œBut part of your duties, surely, is to attempt to lead straying sheep back to the flock?”
    Mr. Osborne shook his head. “No chance of that with Amos. He may be only a tenant farmer, but he is an intelligent man, and his beliefs, or disbeliefs, rather, are the result of deep reflection. Adelaide knows I visit him as a friend, not as a pastor. I would not offend him by trying to persuade him to return to the Church, even if I …” He cut himself off, with obvious consternation. “But I am keeping you standing, Miss Dalrymple. I must be on my way.”
    Abruptly, he raised his hat, and he turned to his bicycle while Daisy was still expressing her thanks for his rescue of her nephew.

    Puzzled, her curiosity further aroused instead of satisfied, she watched him wheel the cycle across the lane to the Vicarage. His somewhat rude departure was wholly at odds with his previous courtly manner. He had found himself on the point of disclosing