‘Where are you?’

‘Henhouse.’

‘Oh.’

Padding gingerly through the long wet grass, Miss Amy Murgatroyd approached her friend. The latter, attired in corduroy slacks and battledress tunic, was conscientiously stirring in handfuls of balancer meal to a repellently steaming basin full of cooked potato peelings and cabbage stumps.

She turned her head with its short man-like crop and weather-beaten countenance toward her friend.

Miss Murgatroyd, who was fat and amiable, wore a checked tweed skirt and a shapeless pullover of brilliant royal blue. Her curly bird’s nest of grey hair was in a good deal of disorder and she was slightly out of breath.

‘In theGazette,’ she panted. ‘Just listen-what can itmean?

A murder is announced…and will take place on Friday, October 29th, at Little Paddocks at 6.30 p.m. Friends please accept this, the only intimation.’

She paused, breathless, as she finished reading, and awaited some authoritative pronouncement.

‘Daft,’ said Miss Hinchcliffe.

‘Yes, but what do you think itmeans?’

‘Means a drink, anyway,’ said Miss Hinchcliffe.

‘You think it’s a sort of invitation?’

‘We’ll find out what it means when we get there,’ said Miss Hinchcliffe. ‘Bad sherry, I expect. You’d better get off the grass, Murgatroyd. You’ve got your bedroom slippers on still. They’re soaked.’

‘Oh, dear.’ Miss Murgatroyd looked down ruefully at her feet. ‘How many eggs today?’

‘Seven. That damned hen’s still broody. I must get her into the coop.’

‘It’s a funny way of putting it, don’t you think?’ Amy Murgatroyd asked, reverting to the notice in theGazette. Her voice was slightly wistful.

But her friend was made of sterner and more single-minded stuff. She was intent on dealing with recalcitrant poultry and no announcement in a paper, however enigmatic, could deflect her.

She squelched heavily through the mud and pounced upon a speckled hen. There was a loud and indignant squawking.