Give a Corpse a Bad Name by Elizabeth Ferrars

know, George, it might have been the Milne girl.’
    â€˜Eh?’ said George.
    â€˜The one who was gardening on Thursday afternoon. The one who lit the bonfire.’
    George shook his head. ‘Notice her hands? Never done a tougher job than a manicure. No,’ he went on as Toby frowned at him doubtingly, ‘you needn’t put it on, Tobe; I know you didn’t notice them. She took darn good care that you’d only notice her eyes.’

CHAPTER 7
    Chovey is built mostly along one straight road. It swells slightly about the middle, where the church, the eighteenth-century almshouses, the school and a number of old cottages cluster together. It has, in fact, somewhat the formation of a breeding worm.
    From the grey, stone solidity of The Laurels at one end to a nine months old bungalow at the other, it stretches about three quarters of a mile. There are several hundred yards of bungalows. They are all built of a hard-looking, white brick that never mellows, have two rooms, kitchen, bathroom and indoor sanitation, and steeply pitched roofs of pink asbestos tiles. In one of these, in pride and moderate comfort, lived Sergeant and Mrs Eggbear.
    That evening Toby and George ate their supper in its sitting-room. They ate cold chicken, apple pie and Devonshire cream, trifle with almonds and more Devonshire cream on top, and biscuits and cheese. Mrs Eggbear apologized; she said that Friday was her day for visiting her mother in Purbrook, so she had not had time to get them a proper meal.
    When she had cleared away the supper she brought in tea.
    Toby, full of food and stretched out almost at full length in a cretonne-covered chair, his cup and saucer resting against his chest, remarked presently, ‘Somebody is trying to pull me into stirring up some local slime, Sam. Who is it?’
    The sergeant dropped another lump of sugar into his tea. ‘There’s nothin’ to go on,’ he said. ‘You take my word for it, you won’t find out anythin’. You won’t find out anythin’ unless some more letters come. Then maybe you’ll be able to add one thing and another and get an answer. But that letter on its own don’t give anythin’ away.’
    â€˜It gives away one thing,’ said Toby, sipping tea, ‘no, two.’
    â€˜What’s that?’ said Eggbear.
    â€˜One: the writer’s someone who knew the flask was there—’
    â€˜Might be almost anyone. The time of the big accident there was a whole crowd saw Mrs Milne give a drink to the man who’d passed out.’
    â€˜Well then, two: the writer’s someone who knew that the flask was empty on Tuesday night—or at least some time between Tuesday and today.’
    â€˜Yes, well?’ said Eggbear.
    â€˜How many people are there,’ said Toby, ‘who stand a chance of being able to get a look inside Mrs Milne’s car?’
    The sergeant did a little meditative nodding to show that he had comprehended.
    Mrs Eggbear suggested: ‘Would you like a pencil and paper?’
    â€˜I think I’ve got most of them in my head already,’ said Toby. ‘There’s Mrs Milne herself and her daughter. There’s the cook, and the maid, and the gardener. There’s that young chap, Laws. There’s the major. Those two—Laws and Maxwell, I mean—came down to the Ring of Bells on Wednesday evening in Mrs Milne’s car. They may actually never have had a moment to themselves in the car, still, one’s got to count them in. And then there are the two old Maxwells.’
    â€˜Eh?’ said Eggbear.
    â€˜The other three had been up to Chovey Place for dinner, hadn’t they? The car must have been standing about somewhere up there—outside the door, or in a garage. And it probably wasn’t locked. Or would one lock one’s car when one went to visit the Maxwells?’
    Mrs Eggbear tittered.
    George observed: ‘But at that rate, Tobe,