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complicated young womanhood.
    ‘Then this evening,’ Tim spoke in such a tone of pained forgiveness that his mother was hard put to it not to laugh, ‘just because I put that snurge in his place, what must she do but fly off the handle, although I don’t believe,’ he added magnanimously, ‘that she can have meant half the things she said—’
    ‘Don’t you?’
    ‘—and she’ll probably be sorry about them later, but the fact that she could say them at all was a shock. She actually implied that I went round stabbing people in the back—’
    ‘Lots of people I should like to do that to,’ said Liz. ‘Look here, I’m not worried about you and Sue – I mean,’ she added hastily, ‘it’s very upsetting but, as you say, it’ll probably be all right in the morning – but I don’t like the idea of your being rude to MacMorris.’
    ‘Oh?’ With an obvious effort Tim removed his mind from the puzzling problem of sex.
    ‘I don’t expect anyone overheard you, and MacMorris is sensible enough to keep quiet about it, but we’re living in a village, and I’ve lived in villages long enough to know that everything you do leads to something else – usually something you didn’t expect – and ends in feuds, and people who live next to each other not talking to each other, and that sort of silliness.’
    ‘What do you want me to do?’
    ‘That’s up to you.’
    ‘You think I ought to apologise to him?’
    ‘It wouldn’t do any harm.’
    ‘But he’s such a—oh, all right. If you think so. I shan’t have time until tomorrow evening. Busy day tomorrow.’
    ‘I should think that would do very nicely. You’ll both have cooled off by then. And as for Sue – you say she was really annoyed?’
    ‘She didn’t pull her punches.’
    ‘You can take that as a good sign. When a girl’s really finished with a man she laughs at him.’
    ‘She certainly didn’t laugh.’
    ‘I’m going to bed. You won’t forget to—’
    ‘Stoke the boiler, put the dogs out, bolt the front door and turn out all the lights.’
    ‘So long as you do it,’ said Liz.
     
    When she had gone, Tim lay for a long time, quite relaxed now. He had a gift for keeping still which a professional burglar might have envied. Only his eyes moved with his thoughts.
    The telephone bell brought him to his feet.
    ‘Hullo – yes? Oh. Well, I think she’s in her bath. Can I take a message?’
    The telephone said something querulous.
    ‘I didn’t quite get that.’
    ‘Who is it?’ said Liz from the top of the stairs.
    ‘Oh, here is Mother. Hold on a second.’ He put his hand over the mouthpiece.
    ‘It’s the Vicar. He’s upset about something and it’s making him squeak. I can’t understand it all. Something about a key.’
    ‘I’ll deal with him.’
    Liz sailed down the stairs, majestic in a flame-coloured dressing-gown.
    Her arrival seemed to have a soothing effect on the Vicar, whose voice came down two semitones at once. Liz listened carefully and without interruption.
    ‘I’ll find out what Tim did with the key,’ she said at last. ‘We can’t do much tonight. I’ll ring you again in the morning. No, no. Of course not. Quite right to telephone me at once—’
    She rang off, and said to Tim, ‘ Have you still got the church key?’
    ‘Oh, Lord. Yes. I believe I have. I dropped it into my mackintosh pocket. I meant to give it back, but that business with Sue—’
    ‘Are you sure you shut the church door?’
    ‘Yes, certain.’
    ‘And locked it?’
    ‘Yes, I’m pretty sure I locked it. What’s it all about?’
    ‘The offertory box has been broken open. Hallibone found out when he went up to the church about an hour ago. He’s got his own key, of course. The one you’ve got’s the only other one.’
    ‘I see,’ said Tim rather blankly. ‘How much does he reckon he’s lost?’
    ‘The box hadn’t been cleared for a week. It might have been as much as two pounds.’
    ‘Crime,’ said Tim, ‘comes to