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and affection welling up as the old man shuffled slowly across to the door of the stone staircase in the corner of the kitchen. Suddenly he seemed smaller and more bowed. He appeared to have aged ten years in as many minutes.
    â€˜Are you sure you’re all right?’ Peter asked softly. ‘Shall I make some tea for you?’
    Roland shook his head again.
    â€˜No, boy – no. I’d have an early night, if I were you. We may have a lot to face after tomorrow comes.’
    With those cryptic words, he went wearily up the winding stairs.

Chapter Three
    â€˜I’ll bet it’s been a hell of a long time since this spot saw so many people before, Peter!’
    The morning breeze ruffled the dark hair of the speaker as he offered a packet of Players around the little group clustered at the mouth of the old lead mine.
    â€˜You missed the first act of the drama last night, David,’ replied the journalist. ‘Your father only needed one of those tweed caps to be the complete Sherlock Holmes!’
    David Ellis-Morgan grinned at the thought of his father, whom he so much resembled, playing the detective.
    â€˜I can well imagine him, Peter! But he’s had his share of the sensation – so Gerry and I left him to do morning surgery while we came up to have a snoop around.’
    He turned and tapped his brother on the shoulder. Gerald was peering into the shaft, trying to make out what was happening amongst the flickering lights at the other end. ‘See anything in there, Gerry?’
    â€˜There’s only a lot of milling around, and a lot of cursing,’ replied Gerald. He straightened up and accepted a cigarette from his brother’s packet. Though he was the same build and had dark hair like David, his features were very different. He had the pointed Ellis-Morgan jaw, but there the likeness finished. He lit up and moved across to the bottom of the ramp, where three shirt-sleeved policemen sat resting on the grass.
    â€˜What exactly is going on in there, chaps?’ asked Gerry in the hail-fellow-well-met manner that came so easily to him. ‘From the entrance, it looks a real shambles!’
    One of the policemen, brought by the CID to help with the manual work, pulled himself up and mopped his forehead, still sweating from his spell of excavating at the bottom of the shaft.
    â€˜Well, Doctor, our shift – that’s us three – spent all our time just moving damn great stones from a heap and stacking them back along the passage. I don’t know what the other boys are doing in there at the moment.’
    Another of the constables spoke up.
    â€˜Hardly room to move in there, what with three of us, the superintendent, two inspectors and a sergeant – not to mention the photographer.’
    â€˜About ninety per cent policemen and ten per cent air, eh?’ Gerry was addicted to facetious comments – in contrast to his more serious-minded brother, who was rather dour in his speech.
    â€˜What’s been found so far?’ asked Peter, his mind on the Morning News .
    The police officer appeared to have read his thoughts. ‘I really couldn’t say, sir,’ he replied evasively. ‘But I think Superintendent Pacey picked up a few things.’ Peter looked away from the mine entrance up to the crest of the grassy slopes above them. Here PC Griffith stood yawning after his night’s vigil, keeping a small group of curious sightseers at bay.
    â€˜Wonderful where they come from, isn’t it?’ said one of the constables, following his gaze. ‘If you had a corpse in the middle of the Sahara, there’d be a crowd of damn rubbernecks there inside ten minutes!’
    Peter agreed fervently. ‘It beats me how they knew about this in the village last night. Dash it, not two hours after we left here, I called in the pub, and they told me more about the affair than I knew myself!’
    David gave a short laugh, tinged with