CHAPTER FOUR1
Macdonald, when he followed Mr. Brough over the fell on the Monday, was still pondering hard over the situation. Many years of detection had made the C.I.D. superintendent very acute at discerning the underlying impulses of those he dealt with, whether witnesses or accused persons. Macdonald found himself more and more sceptical of Mr. Brough’s abstract “idea”: it seemed out of character for the farmer to have taken the action he did without something in the way of evidence to prompt him. Brough could have followed a mere idea independently without confiding in anybody: he could have borrowed the keys or used other methods of entering that long-abandoned house, but he wanted a witness, someone to safeguard himself. Not the local police, but still a policeman, and from that f
