She went on, with a very fair imitation of Mrs Butt’s super-refined voice:

‘“And Butt was saying only the other day, Madam, to Mr Timkins from Little Worsdale, that we’d got realculture here in Chipping Cleghorn.Not like Mr Goss, at Little Worsdale, who talks to the congregation as though they were children who hadn’t had any education. Real culture, Butt said, that’s whatwe’ve got. Our Vicar’s a highly educated gentleman-Oxford, not Milchester, and he gives us the full benefit of his education. All about the Romans and the Greeks he knows, and the Babylonians and the Assyrians, too. And even the Vicarage cat, Butt says, is called after an Assyrian king!” So there’s glory for you,’ finished Bunch triumphantly. ‘Goodness, I must get on with things or I shall never get done. Come along, Tiglath Pileser, you shall have the herring bones.’

Opening the door and holding it dexterously ajar with her foot, she shot through with the loaded tray, singing in a loud and not particularly tuneful voice, her own version of a sporting song.

‘It’s a fine murdering day, (sang Bunch)

And as balmy as May

And the sleuths from the village are gone.’

A rattle of crockery being dumped in the sink drowned the next lines, but as the Rev. Julian Harmon left the house, he heard the final triumphant assertion:

‘And we’ll all go a’murdering today!’

Chapter 2. Breakfast at Little Paddocks

At Little Paddocks also, breakfast was in progress.

Miss Blacklock, a woman of sixty odd, the owner of the house, sat at the head of the table. She wore country tweeds-and with them, rather incongruously, a choker necklace of large false pearls. She was reading Lane Norcott in theDaily Mail. Julia Simmons was languidly glancing through theTelegraph. Patrick Simmons was checking up on the crossword inThe Times. Miss Dora Bunner was giving her attention wholeheartedly to the local weekly paper.