Tea and eggs it appeared were the very things for which the wayfarer had an inordinate craving. He was afforded a seat in the one bare public room that the inn boasted, while an old lady with crinkled cheeks began to fussily spread a somewhat stained cloth, and to issue instructions to the old man who was boiling the eggs in the adjoining room.

“A lonely neighbourhood this,” observed the inspector idly.

“There be worse,” said the woman. “Mind ye, John, to keep an eye on the clock. Them eggs should be on not a mite longer than two and a half minutes. Yes, there be more lonely places than this. Out there on the marsh”⁠—she jerked a thumb backwards over her shoulder⁠—“there be places where you won’t see a human soul week in and week out. Here we get plenty of company, what with the lookers and the traffic on the road. We’ve lived here nigh on forty years and we ain’t got no complaint. Leastways its bad for the rheumatics sometimes, and my old man there he has a touch of ague.”