Before she reached the house Dr. Hennis, who was also a special constable, overtook her in his car.

‘Oh, Miss Postgate,’ he said, ’I wanted to tell you that that accident at the “Royal Oak” was due to Gerritt’s stable tumbling down.  It’s been dangerous for a long time.  It ought to have been condemned.’

‘I thought I heard an explosion too,’ said Mary.

’You might have been misled by the beams snapping.  I’ve been looking at ’em.  They were dry-rotted through and through.  Of course, as they broke, they would make a noise just like a gun.’

‘Yes?’ said Mary politely.

‘Poor little Edna was playing underneath it,’ he went on, still holding her with his eyes, ‘and that and the tiles cut her to pieces, you see?’

‘I saw it,’ said Mary, shaking her head.  ‘I heard it too.’

‘Well, we cannot be sure.’  Dr. Hennis changed his tone completely.  ’I know both you and Nurse Eden (I’ve been speaking to her) are perfectly trustworthy, and I can rely on you not to say anything—­yet at least.  It is no good to stir up people unless—­’

‘Oh, I never do—­anyhow,’ said Mary, and Dr. Hennis went on to the county town.

After all, she told herself, it might, just possibly, have been the collapse of the old stable that had done all those things to poor little Edna.  She was sorry she had even hinted at other things, but Nurse Eden was discretion itself.  By the time she reached home the affair seemed increasingly remote by its very monstrosity.  As she came in, Miss Fowler told her that a couple of aeroplanes had passed half an hour ago.

‘I thought I heard them,’ she replied, ’I’m going down to the garden now.  I’ve got the paraffin.’

’Yes, but—­what have you got on your boots?  They’re soaking wet.  Change them at once.’

Not only did Mary obey but she wrapped the boots in a newspaper, and put them into the string bag with the bottle.  So, armed with the longest kitchen poker, she left.

‘It’s raining again,’ was Miss Fowler’s last word, ’but—­I know you won’t be happy till that’s disposed of.’

’It won’t take long.  I’ve got everything down there, and I’ve put the lid on the destructor to keep the wet out.’

The shrubbery was filling with twilight by the time she had completed her arrangements and sprinkled the sacrificial oil.  As she lit the match that would burn her heart to ashes, she heard a groan or a grunt behind the dense Portugal laurels.

‘Cheape?’ she called impatiently, but Cheape, with his ancient lumbago, in his comfortable cottage would be the last man to profane the sanctuary.  ‘Sheep,’ she concluded, and threw in the fusee.  The pyre went up in a roar, and the immediate flame hastened night around her.

‘How Wynn would have loved this!’ she thought, stepping back from the blaze.