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heard the Mayor’s voice as he and Hazelbury emerged into the shop from the inner room.
    â€˜If the key’s neither in his desk nor his cabinet nor his clothing,’ I heard Grimshaw saying, ‘and if you, Mr Hazelbury, do not have it, it must be at Pimbo’s house. I shall send Mallender there immediately to conduct a search.’
    I excused myself and went out to join them. The thought of our sergeant-constable, as clumsy in manner as he was in speech, turning the Pimbo house upside down, was not a congenial one. He would have little regard for the distressed mother, and even less for her servants.
    â€˜Mr Grimshaw,’ I put in, ‘we may spare Mr Mallender the trouble. I must go out to Cadley myself today. Allow me to enquire about the strong room key and if necessary have a look for it. It may be that a thoroughgoing search by the constabulary will be unnecessary.’
    Grimshaw shot me with what he may have thought a penetrating glance, then grunted.
    â€˜Very well, Cragg, I’ll leave it to you. But I shall require your immediate report.’
    He swept from the shop and I returned to the inner room, bringing Hazelbury and Ambler with me. We found every drawer and cupboard open and its contents hastily emptied onto the floor after the Mayor’s attempts to find the missing key. The body too had been lifted up and deposited on the floor. I asked Ambler to send the apprentice out for a dust-sheet which, when it came, we draped over the late Phillip Pimbo. I then instructed the Chief Cashier to get the apprentice to wash away the blood and to have the door of the business room repaired so that it could be securely locked. Finally I picked up the pistol and powder flask, which still lay on the writing table.
    It was a small weapon, fit for a coat pocket or a bedside drawer, with a curling somewhat bulbous grip and a stumpy barrel. I thumbed the hammer so that, in an easy, silken movement, it came into the cocked position. Then with a bare touch to the trigger I released the hammer. Its flint flashed against the frizzle, there was an instantaneous faint crack as it hit the pan, and the gloomy business room was charged with a scintillating flicker of lightning from the sparking flint.
    â€˜This would be better locked up at my office,’ I told Hazelbury. I slipped it into my pocket with the flask and stepping out of the shop turned homewards – and dinnerwards.
    *   *   *
    Fortified after a meal of mutton stew with dumplings, and gratified by half an hour’s conversation with my dear wife Elizabeth, I rode out to see old Mrs Pimbo at Cadley. The villa, Cadley Place, that her son had built some eight or nine years before, stood a little way back from the road, and had two gates, with the legends ‘In’ and ‘Out’ painted on them. The drive was in the shape of a shallow horseshoe, at the top of which stood the residence. It was a house of some pretension to the latest architectural fashion, though by no means so big as to support more than three servants living under its slate roof. It boasted four high sash windows in its front, two on either side of a porch supported by elegant columns, a further floor above and an attic floor with three dormer windows for the servants.
    One of these, a scrawny maid hardly older than a child, opened the door to me in a markedly timid way. I asked for the mother of Mr Pimbo.
    â€˜Mrs Pimbo, she’s in the salon,’ she told me.
    â€˜Then will you tell her I am here to see her?’
    The girl looked flustered. She hesitated, glancing over her shoulder into the hall behind, so I added by way of encouragement,
    â€˜This is Coroner’s business. I would be obliged if you would announce me without delay. It is a matter of importance.’
    She bobbed and blushed and opened the door wide for me to enter.
    â€˜I’ll show you the way, if you please, Sir.’
    I was conducted into one of the front