"You can't do that.
Scotland Yard will only take over on a demand from the chief constable of the county.
Actually they have sent Graves."
"I don't mean that kind of an expert.
I don't mean someone who knows about anonymous letters or even about murder.
I mean someone who knows people.
Don't you see?
We want someone who knows a great deal about wickedness!"
It was a queer point of view. But it was, somehow, stimulating.
Before I could say anything more, Mrs. Dane Calthrop nodded her head at me and said in a quick, confident tone:
"I'm going to see about it right away." And she went out of the window again.
The next week, I think, was one of the queerest times I have ever passed through.
It had an odd dream quality. Nothing seemed real.
The inquest on Agnes Woddell was held and the curious of Lymstock attended en masse.
No new facts came to light and the only possible verdict was returned:
"Murder by person or persons unknown."
So poor little Agnes Woddell, having had her hour of limelight, was duly buried in the quiet old churchyard and life in Lymstock went on as before.
No, that last statement is untrue.
Not as before...
There was a half-scared, half-avid gleam in almost everybody's eye.
Neighbor looked at neighbor.
One thing had been brought out clearly at the inquest - it was most unlikely that any stranger had killed Agnes Woddell.
No tramps or unknown men had been noticed or reported in the district.
Somewhere, then, in Lymstock, walking down the High Street, shopping, passing the time of day, was a person who had cracked a defenseless girl's skull and driven a sharp skewer home to her brain.
And no one knew who that person was.
As I say, the days went on in a kind of dream.
I looked at everyone I met in a new light, the light of a possible murderer.
It was not an agreeable sensation!
And in the evenings, with the curtain drawn, Joanna and I sat talking, talking, arguing, going over in turn all the various possibilities that still seemed so fantastic and incredible.
Joanna held firm to her theory of Mr. Pye. I, after wavering a little, had gone back to my original suspect, Miss Ginch.
But we went over the possible names again and again:
Mr. Pye?
Miss Ginch?
Mrs. Dane Calthrop?
Aimйe Griffith?
Emily Barton?
Partridge?
And all the time, nervously, apprehensively, we waited for something to happen.
But nothing did happen.
Nobody, so far as we knew, received any more letters.
Nash made periodic appearances in the town but what he was doing and what traps the police were setting, I had no idea.
Graves had gone again.
Emily Barton came to tea. Megan came to lunch.
Owen Griffith went about his practice.
We went and drank sherry with Mr. Pye.
And we went to tea at the vicarage.
I was glad to find that Mrs. Dane Calthrop displayed none of the militant ferocity she had shown on the occasion of our last meeting.
I think she had forgotten all about it.
She seemed now principally concerned with the destruction of white butterflies so as to preserve cauliflower and cabbage plants.
Our afternoon at the vicarage was really one of the most peaceful we had spent.