“Why did you go to see her?” asked Wilkes.

Agatha hesitated. She had really wanted to know if there was any way in which Sybilla could have killed George’s wife, but she didn’t want to think about George and had no proof at all, so she said instead, “I just wondered if she had heard any gossip around the village, any feuds or competition in the jam-making business. Stuff like that. Was it suicide? Did she leave a note?”

“Yes. It’s a straightforward case of suicide.”

“Was the note typewritten?” asked Agatha eagerly.

“This is not Morse. This is real life,” said Wilkes. “The letter was in her own handwriting as far as we can judge at the moment.”

“And what did it say?” asked Agatha.

Wilkes hesitated. He hated giving Agatha any information at all. Then he said reluctantly, “It said, ‘I cannot continue to live with a death on my conscience.’ And it is signed.”

“A death? One death? But there were two deaths. Could she have been ref-Never mind.”

“But we do mind,” put in Bill Wong, his almond-shaped eyes shrewd. “Did you have another death in mind?”

“No, no, I don’t know what I meant,” said Agatha hurriedly.

The questioning went on. At last she was glad to escape and dragged Roy away from a group of reporters and told him the police were waiting for him.

“Don’t say anything about us thinking Sybilla might have murdered George’s wife,” she hissed.

She gave a succinct statement to the press about how she and Roy had found the body and then hurried to her car. They followed her, but she switched on the engine and turned on the air conditioning until they retreated.

There was a gentle rise outside the churchyard where she was parked and she could see the road dipping down into the village. Huge black clouds were towering up in the sky above the end of the village. Seeing that the press had decided to leave her alone, Agatha opened the windows and switched off the engine.