She remembered Rogers, and she knew Parsons, who often went there on a Friday afternoon. When Rogers left, a woman took his place and ordered tea and cakes. The woman left when Parsons was still reading his magazine, and a second woman took her place opposite Parsons. This second woman was there when Parsons drank his remaining tea, pulled a face, got up, and muttered something. She didn’t take much interest in him, and the next time she saw him he was lying over the wreckage of a table-dead.”

“The name of the second woman?”

“We don’t know.”

“Don’t know!” echoed Bony. “But you inferred you obtained a statement from her.”

“The statement is unsigned and undated. It was posted at the GPO some time between nine and one the next morning.”

“Your theory?”

“That on seeing Parsons sprawled across the table she remained in the cafe to see what would happen, like many other curious people. She saw the proprietor rush out, and she saw the doctor and me come in. When she knew that Parsons was dead, she slipped away, determined not to be mixed up in the affair. Surprisin ’, the number of people who shy away from having to go into a witness box. Anyway, either her conscience persuaded her to write the statement or a husband or someone did. We advertised for her, but she never came forward like Rogers did.”

“The woman who took Rogers’s place-did she contact you or you her?”

Crome shook his head.

Bony made a note and Crome gnawed his lip.

“No motive suggests itself for this second murder?”

“Not one-only lunacy, and that’s not a motive,” replied Crome. “There was cyanide in Parsons’s cup. I did have the intelligence to grab the cup. I should have-Oh, what’s the bloody use?”

“ ‘It is folly to shiver over last year’s snow,’ asWhately or someone wrote,” Bony stated with conviction. “You searched the cafe for traces of cyanide?”

“After me and Abbot finished with it you’d not recognise it for a cafe,” answered the sergeant. “Not a trace. We looked for cyanide in and under and on the roof of the house where Parsons lived with his niece and her husband. Nothing. There was no discord in that home. Parsons hadn’t any enemies. Never got a lead. Never got a lead in the Goldspink case, either.”