Chapter 20It was not until the evening that the first trickle from the now rushing stream of Greenings gossip reached Inspector Bury. He had taken statements from Edward Random and the Vicar, and from the Miss Blakes, but no one had thought of telling him that a work-party met at the Vicarage on Friday evenings, or that Miss Sims and Mrs. Stone were sponsoring a highly sensational rumour involving Edward Random. Inspector Bury was not a local man, and had only been a year or two at Embank, but his wife’s stepmother was a cousin of Miss Sims, and one of her uncles had married a distant connection of the Stones. The uncle had a flourishing confectionery business in Embank, and old Mrs. Stone came over twice in the week to pick up a good-sized basket of the left-overs. Saturday was one of her
