“We’ll begin at the beginning… your brother-in-law.”

Passing to the porch and so into the brilliant sunlight, Yoti addressed himself to Thring.

“You live next door, Mr Thring. When did you see Mrs Rockcliff last?”

“Matter of fact, several days ago,” replied the neighbour. “My wife last saw her about eight on Monday evening. Mrs Rockcliff was then going out.”

“Without the baby?”

“She never took the baby out with her at night.”

“Just left it in the house… alone?”

“Yes. That’s what made us worry. Yesterday morning Mrs Rockcliff didn’t take in her milk and paper, and didn’t collect her mail from the box. When more milk was left this morning, and more papers, and another letter, we got concerned about the baby in case Mrs Rockcliff hadn’t come home on Monday night. I knocked at the front door several times this morning. I went round the back and knocked again. I didn’t think to try if the front door was unlocked.”

“Mrs Rockcliff never left the baby with anyone when she went out?”

“Not that we know of, and the wife’s a pretty observant woman. In fact, she’s said more than once it was a shame to leave the infant all alone in the house at night.”

A car slid to a halt beyond the knot of people gathered at the street gate.

“How old was the baby?”

“Eleven weeks.”

“You were on speaking terms with the mother, I suppose?”

“No more than that,” Thring replied, adding: “Exceptingthat I’ve done her garden now and then. We know the baby’s age because we knew when Mrs Rockcliff went to hospital and when she came home.”

A blind man could have told by the footsteps on the cement path that a doctor was walking it. Dr Nott was tall, large and dark. He wore no hat, and the leather bag appeared as having been tormented by rats.

“Spot of bother, Sergeant?” he surmised as though commenting on the weather.

“Mrs Rockcliff, Doctor, seems to be dead.”