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the promenade at the time?”
    â€œWe know one or two. Our man unfortunately let one get away.”
    John Moore told Carolus of Sitwell’s observations, including his meeting with Lobbin, whom Moore described as a very good chap.
    â€œWe’ve traced the woman with large feet, and her husband. She certainly would look rather mannish beside him at night. Their name’s Bullamy and they’re visitors to the town. We also know the man Lobbin, a local newsagent. But we can’t trace a man Sitwell sent to the phone. Small, fat and muffled up is all I can get from him. Sitwell’s a keen young man and annoyed with himself for not having seen the man properly and asked his name. He was so anxious to get someone to put a call through that he let this go. He remembers a young man without a hat or overcoat whom he saw on his second visit to the promenade. There are also a few people whom Sitwell saw earlier, but I’m only giving you the gist of the thing now. The real point seems to me that none of Rafter’s family, no one in fact who could have the smallest motive so far as we know, was seen on the promenade that evening.
    â€œUnless one of the two unidentified ones, the fat muffled man or the youth, belonged to the family.”
    â€œExactly. We’re checking on that, of course.”
    â€œHad the body been robbed?”
    â€œNot unless it was some special object. Rafter had seven pounds in his pocket-case and a good watch.”
    â€œHave another drink, John. Mrs Stick won’t be ready for us yet and I want to hear about the family.”
    â€œThanks. First there’s his elder brother Bertrand. About fifty, quiet, apparently quite unperturbed about the whole thing. He’s a widower with a pleasant flat overlooking the sea. Good war record—temporary Colonel. Make no bones about it, he hoped never to see his brother again and truly believed him dead.”
    â€œLive alone?”
    â€œThere was a rather handsome girl there when I went, referred to as ‘my secretary’.”
    â€œThen?”
    â€œAn unmarried sister. Emma Rafter. Horsey type. Cheerful, rather downright. She seems almost amused at being questioned. Then there’s another sister with two sons, one grown up, a Mrs Dalbinney. Living apart from her husband but not divorced. A bit
grande dame
but apparently quite an ordinary sort of matron.”
    â€œWhat about the grown-up son?”
    â€œI haven’t met him yet. I gather he’s clever. I believe the younger son, a boy of fifteen or so, is in your school here.”
    â€œI never know their names,” admitted Carolus. “Is that all?”
    â€œThere is another brother, the only one, it seems, who does any work. He’s a solicitor in Bawdon, our county town. Wife younger than he is and three small children.”
    â€œNot a very promising lot, John. But I see your point. Motive’s the only wear. Can they all ‘account for their movements’, as they say, at the time of the crime?”
    â€œOh yes. They were quite good-natured about it. Spoke as though they were indulging me in a whim when Iasked them. Bertrand had gone to bed. Emma and Mrs Dalbinney went together to the pictures and afterwards back to Mrs Dalbinney’s flat for a nightcap. Emma stayed the night there as they were both alone. I haven’t see the solicitor yet. He had been to see his sister in Selby that afternoon. I feel sure he’ll be able to say exactly where he was.”
    â€œYou’re not regarding these as alibis, are you?”
    â€œNo. I haven’t got so far. There would have to be a great deal of checking on them before we did that. But they sound perfectly reasonable.”
    â€œHave you tried to find anyone else with a motive for killing Ernest Rafter?”
    â€œWe’re going into that now. All his movements since landing. A report’s coming through from the Australian police, too. It may point to