Yoti closed the door, and the light from the open fanlight emphasised the lines which suddenly appeared about his wide mouth. Abruptly he strode to the bedroom, paused just within the door frame. The scene was registered as a succession of pictures: beginning with the meticulously made bed, then the blind-protected windows, the body of the woman on the floor, and finally the empty cot beyond the foot of the bed.

“Thring says he and his wife are sure that Mrs Rockcliff left the child alone in the house,” Essen said. “None of the neighbours have seen it since last Monday. Looks like the woman returned to find the baby-thief on the job, and was done in because she recognised him.”

It was a pleasant room, the drawn linen blinds creatinga pseudo -coolness, and the sunlight penetrating at one side to fashion a finger of gold to caress a dead hand upon a blue rug. There was light enough to see the lacy draperies of the baby’s cot, the feeding bottle on the small table, the miniatures on the walls.

Only now was he conscious of the flies blundering about, of the staleness of the air, of the silence about him and of the noises without. On tiptoe he left the doorway to step over the body and reach the cot. He could see the valley on the tiny pillow where the baby’s head had rested, and his mind was so crowded with the consequences of that empty cot that the murder of the mother was then of small moment.

He went back the road he had come… over the body… again paused in the doorway, to look at the cot before permitting his eyes to concentrate on the dead woman, lying partially on her back, one arm above the head, the other outflung.

“You been through the house, of course?” he said to Essen.

“Yes. Back door locked. All the windows fastened. Nothing out of place.”