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he had refrained from touching the body, and had retraced his steps, only this time he had kept to the asphalt path, so as not to confuse his own steps with those (Pollock waited patiently to see if he would say it, and with an effort he did) – with those of the murderer.
    â€˜Come, my man,’ said the Dean keenly, ‘how did you know he’d been murdered?’
    Pollock was justifiably annoyed at this usurpation of his authority. He had, of course, noticed the assumption of foul play when it had been made earlier on by Hubbard. But he had not had any intention of asking a question – not at that juncture, anyway.
    â€˜Never mind that,’ he said brusquely. ‘Show me the body, if you please.’
    In answer to an inquiring look, the Dean said, ‘That’s quite all right, Morgan. This is Sergeant Pollock from Scotland Yard.’
    Morgan led the way out in awestruck silence. Possibly he was overcome by the speed and perspicacity of modern police methods which enable an officer to get to the scene of a crime before it is even committed.
    Pollock found himself a prey to conflicting emotions. His professional instincts told him that the local authorities would have to be informed without delay; there is a form and an etiquette in these things, and he who disregards it is sowing for himself the seeds of a mighty crop of obstructiveness and local jealousy. On the other hand an opportunity of getting at a real corpse before the boots of the constabulary had trampled the ground flat was a tempting one; especially as Pollock, in common with most London men, held to the (perhaps prejudiced) view that the Yard was never called in to a provincial crime until every clue was obliterated, every suspect warned and every trail cold – until, in fact, it was too late for Scotland Yard to do anything but take the blame for another unsolved mystery.
    And besides, was it not really his case, anyway? He had been called in to deal with the persecution of Appledown, and now, if one looked at it that way, the persecution had taken an eminently practical turn. But the question was whether the Chief Constable would look at it that way. There was a telephone in the hall, and by the time Pollock reached it, professional etiquette was in the ascendancy; with a deep sigh he unhooked the receiver.
    A few minutes later, following Morgan, and closely followed by the Dean and Hubbard, he was rounding the north-east corner of the Chapter House. Here he paused.
    What he saw was immensely gratifying to him as a policeman. It was a beautiful set of footprints. They came in a straight line across the grass from the north boundary wall and joined the path at the point where they were standing. Morgan was positive that they weren’t his. His early morning weeding had taken him across the west lawn, but from that point onwards he had been on the asphalt path.
    These prints were blurred and muddy (on closer inspection Pollock inclined to the view that they had been made by someone coming away from the cathedral, and not towards it as he had thought at first), and had obviously been produced by someone passing across the turf at some time after the rain had started soaking it on the previous evening. Hubbard and Morgan were dispatched post-haste to the deanery for flower-pots to cover the precious prints, and Pollock turned his attention to the body.
    When he met his death Appledown had been wearing a blue Burberry-type mackintosh and a bowler hat, which had rolled off his head and lay on the path beside him. The cause of death was obvious. What had once been the back of Appledown’s head was now nothing but a mess. Pollock felt cautiously with his fingers. The bone yielded in all directions. A powerful blow, he thought. There had been a good deal of bleeding, and the rainwater had added to the mess.
    He raised the head gently and examined with interest a rough scrape on the cheek and chin; the eyes were closed, and