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“Perhaps, Watson,” Holmes glanced meaningfully at myself, “you would be so kind as to take a swift professional look at the departed whilst Miss Morgan accompanies me into the library. I am curious to view a locked room where death can strike so swiftly. I will join you shortly.”

I lifted the lid of the polished oaken coffin and looked down upon Violet Morgan. Death, and the obvious agony that had accompanied it, had done its utmost to destroy her striking beauty. The soft lips were swollen and marked where she had bitten them, and even the passing of rigor mortis had not removed the grimace from her face. She screamed mutely up at me, for her final suffering had been terrible beyond belief.

I bent over and sniffed at her mouth but the only odour was that familiar smell of death. The palms of her hands were gouged where her fingernails had dug deep and the mortician had been unable to straighten out her fingers fully, it was as though they were afflicted with some deformity. I checked for any signs of an open wound, a cut or scratch, that might have allowed tetanus to enter her bloodstream, but there were none apart from those inflicted by herself.

Certainly the corpse bore some resemblance to the final sufferings of a victim of lockjaw but tetanus would not have struck so suddenly and without warning. Either Doctor Lambeth had never witnessed a case of lockjaw or he was taking advantage of an easy alternative. Or else he was determined to shield Squire Morgan at all costs. I was far from satisfied at what I had seen.

I heard the door open and Holmes joined me. He stood there looking down upon the corpse and I knew that his keen eyes missed nothing.

“Her suffering was terrible, indeed, Watson,” he spoke in a low voice for fear that Gloria Morgan might overhear him.

“Yes, but it was not lockjaw,” I asserted, “but surely some kind of poison that is undetectable.”

“Many poisons leave little or no trace.” He bent over the corpse. “You really must read my treatise on poisons, Watson. Ah!” His fingers lifted up one of Violet Morgan’s clawed hands, moved it so that the fingertips were exposed to view. “You noticed that faint stain on the tip of the forefinger, Watson?”

“I did not regard it as being of any significance,” I replied somewhat abruptly for I sensed that my companion was criticizing my professionalism.

“Let us return to the library.” He straightened up. I followed him out into the hallway, feeling a little offended by his abruptness. Whatever the relevance of that discolouring of the deceased’s fingertip, it clearly needed to be corroborated by an inspection of the scene of the crime. However, I knew better than to interrupt my colleague’s train of thought.

In the library Holmes commenced a minute examination of the windows and the door.

“A beetle could have entered via the gap beneath the locked door,” he spoke without looking round, “but nothing larger than an insect. Miss Morgan informs me that her mother always kept the windows tightly shut, even in summer, as she had a phobia about night moths. But, on the night in question, the temperature would have been below freezing so no window would have been open, anyway.” He moved across to a section of bookshelving, tilted his head slightly to one side to enable him to read the lettering on the spines of the volumes. “Hawker’s Diaries, I perceive, and also that worthy man’s Instructions to Young Sportsmen.” He reached down the latter leather bound tome and flipped the pages. “Well read, I see.”

“As I have already told you, my father virtually worships Hawker and everything that the man stood for,” there was a note of mingled repugnance and annoyance in her tone at this seeming digression from Holmes’s investigations. “My father’s lifelong ambition was to acquire Longparish. The place would have been a virtual shrine for him, but I am afraid family finances have been dwindling for some time.”

“And your father needed to acquire the necessary funds from other sources,” Holmes remarked. “I