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appointed a literary executor, or would a distant relative just dump all of it, unread, into a recycled-paper sack? Should he volunteer to sort the papers?
    There was no sign of the car’s owner. Oliver prowled through the room, noting that the volumes of children’s literature on the bookshelves were alphabetized. He surreptitiously scanned for copies of his own Railway Mice series, and saw, with another pang of guilt, that Breedlove had the complete set to date under Oliver’s “O.C. Blithely” pen name, propped between Elizabeth Beresford’s Wombles books and the beginning of several feet of Enid Blyton. He pulled out his most recent best seller, The Railway Mice and the Vicious Mole . There was a worrying odor of mildew already in its pages.
    Effie wandered over to a heavy oak bureau against the side wall and glanced over some loose papers that had been left on the surface.
    â€œLooking for something, Curly?”
    An exceptionally tall, thin, black man wearing a tailored business suit, was still straightening after his entrance through a low inner doorway. He had spoken with a Birmingham accent, and was now staring at Effie with curiosity. The man was of the height that compelled new acquaintances to inform him helplessly that he was very tall and ask him if he played basketball. Oliver guessed that this was Detective Sergeant Culpepper, and he immediately sympathized, because he knew that the offhand greeting had just qualified the lofty policeman for a blast of the Strongitharm Look.
    But to his astonishment, Effie merely smiled and advanced toward the newcomer, hand outstretched. First Toby is spared, now this lanky colossus—was Eff losing her powers?
    She introduced herself. Culpepper looked abashed as he slowly shook her hand. “I assumed you were another of the deceased’s nosy-parker neighbors,” he apologized. “I had envisaged the famous Superintendent Mallard’s trusty sidekick as a much older woman.”
    â€œThat’s perfectly all right. This is the superintendent’s nephew, Oliver Swithin.” Effie tossed her head in Oliver’s direction, sparing him the ordeal of introducing himself to an authority figure, when he tended to develop a nervous lisp. Oliver shook Culpepper’s hand, willing himself not to exclaim “You’re very tall!”
    â€œThis shouldn’t take long,” Culpepper continued. “Mr. Mallard gave me a good account of the events of last night.”
    He stepped toward the bureau, stooping to avoid a low beam, and opened a manila folder on the cluttered desktop. He read the Mallards’ statements while Oliver and Effie adopted the attitude of airline passengers being quizzed over whether they had packed their own suitcases, nodding solemnly when asked if they agreed with Mallard’s crisp narrative, which, like the previous night’s statement to Constable Bostar, evaded the issue of nudity. Culpepper concluded with Phoebe’s description of the man dressed as a monk spotted on the main road near the edge of the Common. Effie confirmed the observation.
    â€œWhat do you make of this apparition, Sergeant Culpepper?” Oliver asked. “Did the ladies see a ghost?”
    â€œNot a ghost. A vampire.”
    â€œWhat?”
    Culpepper grinned. “That’s what they call him, the ‘Vampire of Synne.’”
    Oliver sneezed.
    â€œYes, it is a bit dusty in here,” Culpepper sympathized. “Let’s get some air.”
    They filed out through the front door, which Culpepper locked behind them, and strolled along the quiet lane toward the parish church, St. Edmund and St. Crispin. Culpepper walked in the middle, taller than Oliver by the same amount that Oliver was taller than Effie. They looked like an Olympic medal ceremony.
    â€œConstable Bostar, the local bobby, filled me in about the Vampire of Synne this morning, before he went on a remarkably extended lunch