Sergeant John Parker was a man aged around thirty, clean shaven except for a moustache, with short centrally parted hair (unlike Swann’s, which, although thinning on top, curled over his ears and the back of his shirt collar) that had just a hint of grey at the temples.

Parker was also a non-smoker, and a church goer, who, in his dark grey three piece suit, polished black boots, white starched wing-collared shirt and blue knotted cravat, gave the young man a studious, almost clerical look, which was appropriate because John Parker seldom smiled, which was not to suggest he didn’t have a sense of humour, he did, but he found it very hard to smile. Oh, he knew he should smile more, his mother had told him so, but he couldn’t, no matter how hard he tried, there were too few smiles in him, which, it has to be said, was useful if you were a copper: it put the fear of God into most murderers, housebreakers, sneak-thieves and loafers.

” Parker?”

” Yes, sir?”

” Take a look out there, what do you see?”

” A road that needs surfacing again, sir. And the usual horses and carts and the motley mix of vagabonds and pickpockets; and dung, a great deal of dung, sir.”

” No, across the road in the back yard of Shakespeare’s Birthplace.”

” The usual load of rubbish…”

Swann interjected impatiently.

” Apart from that! There, look.”

” Some vagrant rolling a barrel.”

” But what’s in the barrel?”

” Beer I shouldn’t wonder. He’s just come out of the back door of the Coach and Horses.”

” Precisely. Now watch what he does.”

The two policeman watched the young man roll yet another barrel of beer into the outhouse.

” Well?” asked Swann.

” Well, sir, I’d say that either the Birthplace has started selling beer to the visitors, or there’s criminality afoot.”

” Good. Get Evans to take a look will you?”

” Yes, sir.”

” Now, any more on our little band of merry actors?” asked Swann.

” Bartlett has arrived and parked his caravan on the fields opposite the theatre. Samuelson too, he’s moored his steam launch opposite Holy Trinity. The Donaldsons left Southport around eight-thirty this morning, should be here around eleven.”

” Thomas and Mrs Deveroux?”

” Last seen catching the train in St Ives two days ago.”

” Any communication?”

” No, sir. Oh, and Littleton has a new girlfriend.”