'The baker's wife?' Corbett tactfully intervened. 'What was her name?'

'Fourbour, Amelia Fourbour. The poor thing now lies buried in our churchyard, though whether she's allowed to rest in peace is another matter.'

'Did you view the corpse?' Corbett asked Selditch.

'Yes, I did. She died by hanging.'

'No mark of any other violence.'

'Such as?'

'Was she struck on the head? Were her hands pinioned?'

'No.' Selditch smiled sadly. 'She was brought to the death house and I examined her. Some of the villagers believed she committed suicide. They said a stake should be driven through her heart and she should be buried under the scaffold.'

'Harsh words for a poor woman,' Corbett observed.

'Amelia was not local born, she was pretty and she had her airs and graces. And tell me, Sir Hugh, have you ever met a popular baker?'

Corbett smiled and shrugged.

'Fourbour's no different,' Selditch continued. 'What he makes others have to buy. With a pretty wife too he was hardly the most popular man in Hunstanton.'

'Could it have been suicide?' Corbett asked.

'Perhaps. I viewed the woman's corpse from head to toe. I examined the back of her head but found no contusion. And I found no sign of any opiate or poison.'

'Nonetheless you think it was murder?'

'I don't know, of course,' Selditch said. 'But why should a pretty young woman hang herself? Father Augustine asked the same question of his parishioners and, thankfully, Amelia now lies buried in God's acre.'

'Yet,' Monck interrupted, 'no one else was at the scaffold. No marks of violence, no hoof prints of another horse or boot marks, were detected.'

Selditch stirred in his chair. 'That is true. But if it was suicide why should someone ride a horse back to the edge of the village, sitting sidesaddle as if it were poor Amelia?'

'You think it was the murderer who rode the horse back? ' Corbett asked.