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courtesy to say good-bye. Well now, what can I do for you lot?’
    They told him.
    â€˜Gobbo!’ the Rector exclaimed. ‘Yes, certainly I saw
Gobbo
that evening, the evening Routh was knocked off. Why shouldn’t I have seen him?’
    â€˜No reason at all, my dear chap,’ the Major agreed. ‘But if I may say so, you seem to have rather missed the point. The question is, did you see Hagberd as well?’
    â€˜No, because he was off somewhere else, murdering Routh.’
    â€˜Yes, but Gobbo says he
wasn’t.’
    â€˜Ah,’ said the Rector magnanimously, ‘I see what you mean now. You didn’t make yourself at all clear at first, chorusing atme all together like that. Did I see Hagberd with Gobbo, you’re asking.’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜He wasn’t there?’
    â€˜He may have been
there?
the Rector admitted. ‘All I’m saying is that I didn’t
see
him. Couldn’t have done, not if he’d been behind the horse-box or the elm.’
    â€˜It’s all a lot of nonsense,’ said Padmore.
    â€˜Gobbo
was talking,
mind you,’ the Rector said.
    â€˜He was?’
    â€˜Yes. Might have been just to himself, though. Or he might even,’ the Rector added doubtfully, ‘have been saying a prayer … Actually, don’t pay too much attention to that,’ he advised them, though none of them was in fact paying it any attention at all. ‘Me being a clergyman, my mind tends to run on prayer.’
    â€˜Jack Jones said,’ said Fen, ‘that just before you got to the pub, you looked along the path that leads to Mrs Clotworthy’s cottage and scowled at somebody.’
    â€˜Scowled?’ said the Rector, scowling. ‘I never scowl. And anyway, I don’t remember that I -’
    But then he did remember. Flicking his horny fingers with a noise like a fire-cracker, he said, ‘Yes, I do, though. It was Youings.’
    â€˜Who’s Youings?’ Padmore anxiously demanded.
    â€˜A pig farmer, my dear fellow.’ The Major began absently scratching Fred’s back with the rubber tip of his stick. ‘Lives just up the road.’
    â€˜He was coming away from Mrs Clotworthy’s,’ said the Rector. ‘Or perhaps he was just taking the short cut through from Chapel Lane.’
    â€˜Youings,’ Padmore muttered. He seemed depressed at this fresh addition to the
dramatis personae
accreting round Gobbo’s troublesome disclosures. ‘Youings, Youings. Youings.’
    The Major said, ‘Did Youings follow you past the pub, Rector?’
    â€˜Don’t know,’ said the Rector. ‘Could have done. You’ll have to ask him.’
    â€˜House that Jack built,’ said Fen.
    â€˜Well, I’m going back to talk to Gobbo again,’ said Padmore. ‘He’s the mainspring.’
    â€˜Rusty old mainspring,’ said the Rector. ‘And if you take my advice, you’ll take no notice of all this gammon he’s been spouting.’ (‘
Right,’
said Padmore.) ‘Amuse yourselves with it, by all means,’ said the Rector, as though offering them a valuable indult. ‘Don’t take it seriously, that’s all.’ To Padmore he said, ‘By the way, don’t forget to come to the Fête, will you? All the fun of the fair. Yes, and while you’re there don’t forget to see the Botticelli.’
    â€˜The Botticelli?’ said Padmore faintly.
    â€˜Well, of course, it isn’t a Botticelli really,’ said the Rector. ‘Awful great nineteenth-century daub actually, size of a barn door. Assumption of the B.V.M. or some such thing. Popish. Still, the Misses Bale imagine it’s a Botticelli, so they get upset if enough people don’t go and see it. You pay five bob and go in alone and sit in front of it and meditate on it for ten minutes.’
    â€˜Do you?’ said Padmore