opened door and flung it wide with a tremendous crash that almost tore its hinges out of their post.
The dark figure against the furthermost parapet started and turned.
Pascoe hurled himself forward. The figure placed one foot on the parapet and thrust itself upwards. What might have been a shriek from below or merely a new crescendo of wind cut through the air. Pascoe sprang to the parapet, gripped one of the castellations with his left hand and caught Davenport by the jacket pocket. He felt the material begin to tear but dared not release either handhold to try for a better grip.
Where the hell was Swithenbank?
He heard the steps behind him, glanced back, saw that intense, controlled stare, and for a long ghastly moment wondered how he could have been so wrong about his own safety.
Then with a strength unpromised by his slight frame, Swithenbank caught Davenport by the shoulders and bore him easily backwards.
There was no resistance.
'I wouldn't have jumped,' he said mildly as they thrust him before them through the doorway. Pascoe half believed him but not enough to relax his grip as they clattered down the wooden stairs.
Once in the church porch he released him to Ursula's equally tight clasp and thought ruefully that of them all Davenport probably looked the least distraught, though what emotion it was that twisted Stella's face as she watched her husband talking earnestly to Davenport was hard to say.
'Is he all right?' asked Kingsley anxiously.
'I doubt it,' said Pascoe. 'We'll get him home, call a doctor and get him sedated. After that…'
He shrugged.
'Terrible, terrible,' said Kingsley. 'Look, Ursula won't want us all tramping around the rectory. Shall I take the main party back to Wear End to dry out? Oh, and there's the supper! It'll be ruined! And you can come on as soon as decently possible.'›
Pascoe sought for some way of saying that, as the matter was not official, a close friend would be more suitable company for the Davenports than an intrusive policeman, but nothing came to mind.
'All right,' he sighed.
And in any case, he was still curious to discover what it was that had sparked off Davenport's extraordinary behaviour.
He found out in the next ten seconds.
'All right everybody,' called Kingsley. 'Here's what we're going to do.'
But nobody was listening. Behind him the big church door, closed against the violent weather, was swinging slowly open.
Into the lighted porch stepped a dark-clad figure in a dripping shapeless cap. In the crook of his arm was a shotgun.
Pascoe saw the glance of hatred that came from Davenport's eyes even before the newcomer spoke.
'Evening, Vicar,' said Arthur Lightfoot. 'Here we are again, then.'
CHAPTER IX
But see, amid the mimic rout A crawling shape intrude!
'How do, Inspector?' continued Arthur Lightfoot. 'Have you got him yet?'
'Got who?' asked Pascoe.
'T'chap who killed our Kate,' said Lightfoot.
'Mr Lightfoot, as I've explained, there's no real evidence that your sister's dead.'
'There's the ear-ring,' interrupted Kingsley. Pascoe regarded him curiously and wondered what his game was.
'Come on, Peter. Let's be getting you home. Whatever the rest of this lot think, you're in no fit state for a metaphysical discussion.'
It was Ursula who spoke but when she moved forward with her arm round her husband's waist, Lightfoot made no effort to step aside.
'Do you mind, Arthur!' she said clearly and savagely.
'Just hold on there, missus,' said Lightfoot. 'I asked Mr Detective here a question. No one sets foot out of here without I get an answer.'
'You've had your answer!' said Ursula. 'And in any case, you can't imagine my husband could have anything to do with Kate's disappearance.'
'I know what t'vicar can and can't do as well as any,' said
Lightfoot with a note of vicious mockery in his voice. 'And you too, missus, I know what you're capable of. AH on you, I know as much about all on you as'd fill a Sunday paper through till Friday.'
He raised his voice as he spoke and there was no mistaking the note of threat.
'There's been notes, has there? And telephone calls, has there? And it's you that's been getting them, brother-in-law?'
That's right,' said Swithenbank calmly. 'But…'
'Who's she? What's she to you?'
The barrel of the gun rose slowly and pointed at Jean Starkey.
'This is Miss Starkey. She's a writer and…'
'I can see what she is,' said Lightfoot scornfully, his eyes running up and down the soaking clinging red dress. 'I said, what's she to you?'
'A friend.'
'A friend, is it? And our Kate not yet properly buried!'
'What makes you so sure she's dead?' burst out Swithenbank.
Lightfoot looked at him with a baring of the teeth which might have been a smile.
'I've seen her through glass and I've heard her in the night. Oh, she's dead, she's' dead, never have doubt of that.'
A spasm of awful grief crossed his face.
'She shouldn't have left, she shouldn't have left,' he keened softly, almost to himself.
'I didn't make her leave,' protested Swithenbank.
'Not you, you girt fool! Wearton. Her home. Me. It were you as caused all this. Like as not whoever wrote that letter knew the truth. It were you, weren't it? Tell us where she's hid, you owe her that. Tell us where she's hid!'
Now the barrel was pointing straight at Swithenbank's chest.
'I wish I knew, Arthur, believe me,' protested Swithenbank in tones of sweet reasonableness whose only effect was to bring the gun stabbing at his rib-case.
'Liar! I've watched you in this churchyard at dead of night. Is she laid here? Is she? I feel her close!'
Pascoe shivered with more than cold. The animal intensity of this man was terrifying beyond the reach of middle-class neurotics, or even suicidal vicars!
'I don't know!' Swithenbank's voice had the ghost of a tremor now, as though he was just beginning to admit the possibility that the trigger might be pulled.
'Tell him what you were doing here, Mr Swithenbank,' Pascoe suggested. He could see no way to disarm the man without risking a reflexive tightening of that gnarled brown finger.
'I just thought, if Kate did come to Wearton, she might be here, somewhere, in the churchyard. I thought perhaps the tomb of the Aubrey-Beesons… we used to play round there as kids… once we went in… there was a key at Wear End, Boris got it… but there was another in the bunch of keys hanging in the porch here, only Peter had started locking the door, so I couldn't get in.'
He was definitely gabbling now.
'You mean you thought that stupid poem might be true?' asked Ursula.
'Why not?' Swithenbank demanded.
'Why not indeed?' echoed Pascoe. 'I mean, the man responsible for the telephone calls ought to know what
