"Very little seems to have been known about Miss Clarke in the neighbourhood; she seemed to be fairly well-to-do and undoubtedly a cut above the village folk, but, equally obviously, she did not belong to the county set. Nor did she encourage visitors, not even the vicar; she seldom went to church, and neither went to parties nor ever asked any one to tea; she did most of her shopping herself, in Meere, and sold her poultry and eggs to Mr. Brook, the local dealer, who served all the best houses for miles around. Every morning at seven o'clock a girl from the village, named Emily Baker, came in to do the housework at Hardacres, and left again after the mid-day dinner. Once a week regularly, Miss Clarke called at Meere Court. Always on a Friday. She walked over in the afternoon, whatever the weather, brought a large basket of eggs with her, and was shown, without ever being kept waiting, straight into Lady Foremeere's sitting-room. The interview lasted about ten minutes, sometimes more, and then she would be shown out again. "Mind you," the funny creature went on glibly, and raising a long, pointed finger to emphasise his words, "no one seems to have thought that there was anything mysterious about Miss Clarke. The fact that 'she kept 'erself to 'erself' was not in itself a sign of anything odd about her. People, especially women, in outlying country districts, often lead very self-centred, lonely lives; they arouse a certain amount of curiosity when they first arrive in the neighbourhood, but after a while gossip dies out if it is not fed, and the hermit's estrangement from village life is tacitly accepted. "On the other hand, Miss Clarke's brother Arthur was exceedingly gregarious. He was a crack tennis player and an excellent dancer, and these two accomplishments procured him his entrée into the best houses in the county--houses which, before the war, when people were more fastidious in the choice of their guests, would no doubt have not been quite so freely opened to him. "It was common gossip that Arthur was deeply in love with April St. Jude, Lord Foremeere's beautiful daughter by a previous marriage, but public opinion was unanimous in the assertion that there never could be any question of marriage between an extemporary gentleman without money or property of any kind and the society beauty who had been courted by some of the smartest and richest men in London. "Nor did Arthur Clarke enjoy the best of reputations in the neighbourhood. He was over-fond of betting and loafing about the public-houses of Barchester. People said, that he might help his sister in the farm more than he did, seeing that he did not appear to have a sixpence of his own, and that she gave him bed and board, but as he was very good-looking and could make himself very agreeable if he chose, the women, at any rate, smiled at his misdeeds and were content to call Arthur 'rather wild, but not really a bad boy.' "Then came the tragedy.