Report of Post-Mortem Examination

Deceased: Miss Edith Mary Roper, aged 58 years Date of Examination: 18th April 1941 Place of Examination: Newton Abbot Cottage Hospital mortuary Pathologist: Dr R. H. Tremlett, MB, BS, Diploma in Public Health

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External Appearance

The body is that of a spare, upright woman of late middle years, approximately five feet four inches in height and eight stone six pounds in weight. Rigor mortis is established in the jaw, neck, and upper limbs. The lower limbs show early rigidity. This progression is consistent with death having occurred approximately ten to fourteen hours prior to examination.

The face shows a dusky, congested appearance. The lips are slightly cyanosed. The conjunctivae of both eyes display scattered petechial haemorrhages: small, pinpoint bleeding visible on the inner surfaces of the eyelids and the whites of the eyes. These are present bilaterally.

The deceased is dressed in a brown wool skirt, a cream cotton blouse, a fawn knitted waistcoat, and felt house slippers. A pair of reading spectacles hangs from a cord around the neck. The clothing is undisturbed. There is no blood on any garment.

No external injuries are present on the body. There are no bruises to the face, mouth, or nose. There is no bruising or abrasion to the neck. The wrists and arms show no marks of restraint or defensive injury. The fingernails are short and clean, with nothing trapped beneath them. There is no tearing or bruising of the lips.

A faint impression is noted on the skin of the left cheek: a shallow, linear indentation approximately two inches in length. This is consistent with pressure from a textured surface applied after death or very close to the time of death, when the skin was still warm enough to take a mark but no bruising could form.

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Internal Examination

The brain is unremarkable. No haemorrhage, no disease.

The lungs are congested and heavy. Both lungs show diffuse congestion consistent with impaired respiration. There is no pneumonia, no tuberculosis, no tumour. The airways are clear. No foreign material is present in the trachea or bronchi. There is no obstruction.

The heart is of normal size. The coronary arteries show mild atheroma appropriate to age. No acute disease.

The stomach contains a small quantity of partially digested food and a quantity of fluid with a chocolate flavour, consistent with cocoa taken one to three hours before death.

The remaining organs are unremarkable for a woman of this age.

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Toxicology

No analysis was performed. There is no indication of poisoning from the gross examination.

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Opinion

The cause of death is asphyxia. The petechial haemorrhages in the conjunctivae and the congestion of the face and lungs are consistent with obstruction of the airways. The absence of bruising to the face, mouth, and neck presents a difficulty. In cases of manual strangulation, one would expect bruising to the throat. In cases of smothering, one would expect some bruising or abrasion around the mouth and nose from the applied object, particularly if the victim struggled.

The absence of such marks may be explained in several ways. If the deceased was asleep or deeply drowsy when the obstruction was applied, resistance may have been minimal or absent. A soft object, such as a cushion or pillow, applied with steady pressure to the face of an unconscious or semi-conscious person, could obstruct the airways without leaving the coarse bruising associated with a struggle. The faint impression on the left cheek is consistent with pressure from a woven fabric.

I am unable to state with certainty whether this death was the result of an act by another person or a natural event. Asphyxia may occur from natural causes in elderly persons during sleep. However, the petechial haemorrhages, the facial congestion, and the impression on the cheek, taken together, are more consistent with mechanical obstruction than with natural death. The presence of a cushion on the floor beside the deceased's chair is noted in the police report. I leave the interpretation of the scene to the investigating officers.

I am prepared to certify the cause of death as asphyxia. The manner of death I leave open.

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R. H. Tremlett, MB, BS, DPH 18th April 1941

Case Notes: Death of Miss Edith Roper

Inspector G. Jennings, Devon Constabulary Notes compiled 18th-20th April 1941

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Called from Exeter at nine o'clock on Friday morning. Sergeant Coombe had been at the scene for two hours by the time I arrived, which is two hours more than I have ever known Coombe to be early for anything. The village of Combeford lies in the Teign valley, six miles from Newton Abbot. A single-street place: church, vicarage, schoolhouse, a dozen cottages, Home Farm at the southern end. The kind of village where everybody knows what everybody else had for breakfast, and holds strong opinions about it. The war has doubled the population with London evacuees billeted in every spare room. Two worlds sharing one lane, and not sharing it well.

Miss Edith Roper, aged fifty-eight, schoolmistress for thirty years. Found at half past seven on Friday morning by Mrs Simmonds, the billeting officer, who calls at the schoolhouse every Friday on her way to the village hall. Miss Roper was seated in her armchair by the sitting room fire. The fire had burned down to cold ash. A cup of cocoa sat on the side table, untouched and cold. A cushion from the chair was on the floor at her feet. She looked, Coombe said, as though she had simply fallen asleep. Except for the eyes.

Dr Tremlett says asphyxia. Petechial haemorrhages in the eyes, congestion of the face. No bruising to the mouth or throat. He will not commit to murder in writing, but off the record he told me: "Someone held something over that woman's face. The cushion is the obvious candidate." The absence of bruising suggests she did not struggle. She was asleep or very nearly so. Killed, in other words, at her most peaceful.

Miss Roper was known to doze off after her evening cocoa. Half the village could tell you that. The other half already had.

The front door was locked from inside. The connecting door between the schoolhouse and the school proper was bolted from the schoolhouse side. The kitchen door at the rear was unlatched. Miss Roper never locked it, according to everyone I have spoken to. Thirty years in a village where nobody locked anything, and it cost her.

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Persons of Interest

Harold Goss, 51. Farmer and ARP warden.

The name that comes up first in every conversation. Before I had even opened my notebook, Sergeant Coombe said, "You'll want to speak to Goss." So did the vicar. So did the woman at the village hall. If suspicion were a ballot, Goss would have won by a landslide.

Goss and Miss Roper were at war. She blocked his plan to plough the school playing field for vegetables by writing to the County Education Officer. Goss was publicly humiliated. At the parish council meeting on the 3rd of April he said, in front of a dozen witnesses: "That woman will be the ruin of this village." He is not a man who whispers.

There is more. Someone wrote an anonymous letter to the War Agricultural Committee alleging that Goss was hoarding animal feed. Goss believed Miss Roper wrote it. I have not yet established whether she did, though the handwriting is apparently copperplate, which narrows the field in a farming parish to roughly one person.

His ARP log for Thursday night shows entries at fifteen-minute intervals from nine o'clock onwards. But there is a gap: nothing between half past nine and a quarter past ten. Forty-five minutes of unaccounted time in the middle of his patrol. His patrol route passes the schoolhouse lane.

Mud on his boots is consistent with the soil on the schoolhouse garden path. The same heavy red clay. Though I am told every boot in the parish carries this mud. Devon is not generous with variety in its soils.

Goss is my primary line of enquiry. He had the motive, the temper, and the gap in his alibi. I want that gap explained.

Reverend Arthur Fenton, 63. Vicar and chairman of school managers.

The vicarage is directly across the lane from the schoolhouse. Thirty feet of gravel between his study window and her sitting room. Fenton has a key to the school as chairman of managers. He knows the layout of the schoolhouse intimately. His wife was in Teignmouth on Thursday night. His housekeeper left at six. He was alone all evening, with a clear view of the schoolhouse and no one to say whether he stayed at his desk.

Sergeant Coombe tells me there is a matter of the school attendance registers. Miss Roper discovered that the numbers had been inflated to secure a larger grant from the County Council. She confronted Fenton on Wednesday. Fenton admits the conversation took place but says he intended to correct the matter himself. He speaks of Miss Roper with the carefully measured respect of a man who knows he has been caught doing something shabby. One detects the distinct discomfort of a clergyman whose sins have been found out by a schoolmistress.

His housekeeper, Mrs Palk, says Fenton was pacing his study on Wednesday evening after Miss Roper's visit. Could not settle. Pacing is not a crime, but it is not serenity either.

Fenton saw a light in the schoolhouse sitting room at nine o'clock when he drew his blackout curtain. He says he did not look again. His study window faces the schoolhouse directly. If he had looked, he might have seen whoever entered.

The connecting door between school and schoolhouse was bolted from the schoolhouse side. If Fenton entered through the school with his key, he would have found the connecting door impassable. Unless he unbolted it earlier in the day. Something to check.

Mrs Dora Simmonds, 44. Billeting officer.

She found the body. She has a key to the schoolhouse because she uses the school office for her billeting records. She visited Miss Roper at half past four on Thursday afternoon to discuss a new evacuee placement. She was the last known person to see Miss Roper alive.

Her alibi is her daughter Pamela, who says they were home all evening listening to the wireless. Mother and daughter. I am not inclined to set great store by family alibis, but Simmonds does not feel right for this. She is the sort of woman who files forms in triplicate and expects the universe to do the same. Officious, detail-minded, and very concerned with procedure. She gave her statement as though dictating minutes to a committee. I half expected her to ask me to second them.

She mentions in passing that she called on Mrs Bewes at about eight o'clock on Thursday evening to deliver a billeting form, and that Mrs Bewes seemed out of sorts. Simmonds puts it down to the strain of managing alone. It is the kind of observation a billeting officer makes: everyone is always coping or not coping, and Simmonds is keeping score.

Mrs Nancy Bewes, 32. Evacuee mother.

A Londoner. Bermondsey. Came down with her two children in October 1939. Her husband is serving in North Africa. She has Thomas, ten, and Rita, seven, both pupils at the school.

She speaks warmly of Miss Roper. Good with the children, patient with Thomas's reading. She says she last saw Miss Roper at the school gate at half past three on Thursday when she collected the children. She was in her cottage all evening after putting them to bed at half past seven.

I see no connection between Mrs Bewes and the death. She had no quarrel with Miss Roper that anyone knows of. She is coping as best she can in difficult circumstances. I note her as a minor witness and move on.

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Key Questions

1. Goss's forty-five minute gap. Where was he between half past nine and a quarter past ten?
2. The connecting door. Was it bolted all day Thursday, or could Fenton have unbolted it during school hours?
3. Simmonds found the body. She had a key. Was this the first time she had called at half past seven on a Friday, or was it routine?
4. The kitchen door. Everyone knew Miss Roper left it unlocked. Anyone could have entered.
5. The cushion. Why was it on the floor? Had Miss Roper dropped it in her sleep, or did someone place it there after use?

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Next Steps

• Press Goss on the gap in his ARP log. He will not like it.
• Examine the school attendance registers and speak to the County Education Officer about Fenton's grant.
• Interview Mrs Palk about Fenton's state of mind on Wednesday and Thursday.
• Confirm Simmonds's routine with the village hall log.
• Obtain Dr Tremlett's final written report.

Goss remains the strongest lead. The public threat, the mud, the gap in his patrol, and the long-running feud with Miss Roper. If the ARP gap cannot be satisfactorily explained, I will request a warrant.

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G. Jennings, Inspector Devon Constabulary 20th April 1941

Police Examination of the Scene

Case: Death of Miss Edith Roper, Combeford Schoolhouse Date of Examination: 18th April 1941 Examining Officer: Inspector G. Jennings, Devon Constabulary Assisting: Sergeant R. Coombe, Newton Abbot

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The Sitting Room

A ground-floor room at the front of the schoolhouse, approximately fourteen feet by twelve. One window facing the lane, curtained with blackout material (dark green cotton, tacked to the frame). The window was latched from inside. The curtain was in place and showed no sign of disturbance.

The fireplace is on the south wall. The grate contained cold grey ash. No warmth remained in the brickwork. The fire had not been tended for many hours.

The armchair: A wing-backed chair upholstered in brown cord, positioned to the left of the fireplace, facing the room. Miss Roper was found seated in this chair, head tilted slightly to the left, hands resting in her lap. Her reading spectacles hung from a cord around her neck. Her felt slippers were on her feet. There was no sign of disturbance to her clothing or posture.

The cushion: A rectangular cushion, approximately eighteen inches by twelve, covered in a green and cream floral fabric with a woven texture. It was found on the floor at Miss Roper's feet, face down.

Examination of the cushion surface revealed the following:

1. Faint impressions on the underside consistent with gripping pressure from fingers or hands. The fabric is too coarse to retain fingerprints.
2. Two small fibres adhering to the upper surface of the cushion. The fibres are dark blue wool, each approximately one inch in length. They are consistent with a hand-knitted garment. They do not match any item of Miss Roper's clothing (her wardrobe was examined: no navy blue knitted garments were found). They do not match any furnishing in the sitting room or elsewhere in the schoolhouse. The fibres are preserved for comparison should a garment become available.
3. A faint stain on the centre of the upper surface, possibly saliva. Not tested further due to the limitations of field examination.

The cocoa: A cup of Cadbury's cocoa, cold, with a thick skin on the surface. The cup was on a small side table to the right of the chair. It appeared untouched. A saucepan in the kitchen contained residue consistent with having been used to heat milk.

No other disturbance was observed in the sitting room. The mantelpiece clock had stopped at twenty past four, but the clock is a wind-up type and had simply run down.

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The Kitchen

A room at the rear of the schoolhouse. Stone-flagged floor, a dresser, a range (cold), a table and two chairs. A door in the back wall leads to the garden.

The kitchen door was found unlatched. It has a simple latch and a bolt, but the bolt was not engaged. The latch was in the open position. The door opens inward. There are no marks of forced entry. The door frame and latch are in good condition with no sign of tampering.

The garden path leading from the lane gate to the kitchen door is beaten earth and gravel. Examination on Friday morning showed no distinct footprints. The path has been used frequently, and the mixed surface does not take clear impressions. There has been no rain for three days.

Mud comparison: Samples of soil from the garden path and from Mr Goss's boots were compared visually. Both consist of heavy red Devon clay with small gravel fragments. This clay soil is characteristic of the entire Combeford parish and is not specific to the schoolhouse garden.

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The School Office

A small room adjoining the main classroom, accessed from the school corridor. Mrs Simmonds uses this room for billeting records. The room was examined for items belonging to Miss Roper.

A letter was found in the top drawer of the desk, in Miss Roper's handwriting, addressed to Mr P. T. Willis, NSPCC Inspector, County Office, Exeter. The letter is dated Wednesday 16th April 1941. It has not been sealed or stamped. It had not been posted. The contents of the letter concern a pupil and are held in evidence.

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The Connecting Door

A wooden door at the end of the school corridor connects to the schoolhouse hallway. Examined on Friday morning: the door was bolted from the schoolhouse side. The bolt is a heavy iron slide bolt mounted on the schoolhouse face of the door. It was fully engaged. There are no marks suggesting it had been recently disturbed.

The school-side surface of the door has a keyhole. Reverend Fenton's key fits this lock. However, even with the key, the door cannot be opened from the school side while the bolt is engaged on the schoolhouse side.

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The Front Door

The schoolhouse front door, facing the lane, was locked. A mortice lock, key operated. The key was in the lock on the inside. The door has no bolt. No marks of forced entry.

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Summary

1. Entry to the schoolhouse was through the kitchen door at the rear, which was unlatched.
2. The front door was locked from inside. The connecting door was bolted from the schoolhouse side.
3. The cushion shows grip impressions and two dark blue wool fibres that do not match any item in the schoolhouse.
4. Mud on Mr Goss's boots is consistent with the garden path soil but also consistent with any location in the parish.
5. Miss Roper's letter to the NSPCC inspector was found in the school office, unposted.
6. No fingerprints recoverable from the cushion fabric. The smooth surfaces in the sitting room (cup, side table, door handles) show only smudged or overlapping prints not suitable for identification.

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G. Jennings, Inspector Devon Constabulary 20th April 1941

Statement of Mrs Nancy Bewes

Taken at Glebe Cottage, Combeford, on the 18th day of April 1941, by Sergeant R. Coombe.

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I've been in Combeford since October 1939. We came down on the train from Waterloo, me and the children, Thomas and Rita. Thomas is ten. Rita's seven. My husband Frank is with the 8th Army. I haven't had a letter since January. You try not to think about what that means. You keep busy.

They put us in Glebe Cottage, which is one of the cottages along the lane past the church. It's small but it's better than some of the billets. Two bedrooms upstairs, a front room and a kitchen at the back. The children share the back bedroom. I'm in the front. Rita's put pictures up on the wall. Flowers, mostly. She draws them from the hedgerow.

Miss Roper was the children's teacher. She was good to them. Proper strict, the way a teacher should be, but fair with it. Thomas has been struggling with his reading. He's not slow, he just gets frustrated and gives up. Miss Roper kept him in at dinner time twice a week to practise. She didn't have to do that. She cared.

On Thursday I took the children to school in the morning as usual. I collected them at half past three. Miss Roper was at the gate saying goodbye to the children, the way she always did. She said good afternoon to me. I said good afternoon back. Nothing out of the ordinary.

I should tell you about Thomas. He had a fall in February. Climbed up on a farm gate down by the river and came off it backwards. Landed on his arm. It swelled up terrible. I took him to the doctor in Newton Abbot and they said it was a fracture, a small one, and put it in a splint. He's had bruises as well. He's that sort of boy, always climbing, always running into things. Country life is new to him. In Bermondsey there were no gates or barns or haystacks. He doesn't know how to be careful around them yet.

Miss Roper spoke to me on Thursday afternoon, at the gate, after the other children had gone. She said she was worried about Thomas. She'd seen bruises on his arms and she knew about the fracture. She said she had a duty to report it. I told her it was a fall. She said she understood, but she had to follow the proper procedure.

I won't pretend I wasn't upset. Any mother would be. But Miss Roper was doing her job. I could see that. I didn't argue with her. I took the children home.

Thursday evening. I gave them their tea at five. Bread and dripping and an egg each. Rita helped me wash up. I put them to bed at half past seven. Thomas was reading his comic. Rita went straight to sleep. She always does. She's a good sleeper. I came downstairs and sat in the front room for a while. Mrs Simmonds knocked at about eight with a form to sign. A billeting form. I signed it and she went.

After that I was on my own. I tidied up the kitchen. Did a bit of mending. I heard the church clock strike ten while I was at the sink washing up the last of the tea things. I went to bed not long after. I don't remember exactly when.

On Friday morning I got the children up at seven and gave them breakfast. I was about to take them to school when Mrs Simmonds came running down the lane. She told me the school would be closed. She didn't say why, not then. I heard about Miss Roper later, from one of the other mothers.

I can't think who would want to hurt her. She wasn't the sort of person who made enemies. She was firm, yes, and she had her way of doing things. But she was kind underneath it. She lent me a book once, when she saw me with nothing to read. Charlotte Bronte. I still have it. I keep meaning to return it.

I'm sorry I can't help more. I didn't see anything on Thursday night. I didn't hear anything. The blackout was on and you can't see your hand in front of your face in this village after dark. No street lamps. Nothing. It's not like London.

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Statement read over and confirmed by Mrs Bewes.

Statement of the Reverend Arthur Fenton

Taken at the Vicarage, Combeford, on the 18th day of April 1941, by Inspector G. Jennings.

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I have been vicar of this parish for twenty-two years and chairman of the school managers for the same period. Miss Roper was already here when I arrived. She was, if I may say so, something of an institution. The school was her domain. She ran it with absolute authority and, in my experience, absolute competence. I had the greatest respect for her, even when we disagreed. Especially when we disagreed, in fact. She had the uncomfortable habit of being right.

On Thursday I was occupied with parish business for most of the day. I had a meeting with the churchwardens at ten o'clock regarding the Good Friday service. We are using the village hall this year because the church roof has developed a leak above the chancel. Water on the altar cloth during Communion is not the kind of miracle one hopes for. I was at my desk in the study from about half past eleven onwards, working on the accounts and the Sunday sermon. I had a light luncheon at one. I did not visit the school on Thursday.

My wife, Mabel, left for Teignmouth on Wednesday evening to stay with her sister, who has been unwell. She was not expected back until Saturday. Mrs Palk, our housekeeper, prepared my supper on Thursday and left at six o'clock as is her custom. I ate at half past six. After that I was alone in the vicarage for the remainder of the evening.

I spent the evening in my study, writing the Good Friday sermon. It was to be on the theme of sacrifice, which seemed appropriate given the times. I had the wireless on until the nine o'clock news. After the news I turned it off and continued writing. The sermon was not going well. I had been writing about duty and kept crossing things out. One does not write convincingly about duty on the same evening one is contemplating one's own failures.

At about nine o'clock, or shortly after, I drew the blackout curtain across my study window. In the moment before I pulled it shut I noticed a sliver of light from the schoolhouse sitting room. The schoolhouse is directly across the lane, no more than thirty feet from my window. Miss Roper's blackout was not quite flush. There was a narrow line of light at the bottom of the curtain, no more than half an inch. I did not think anything of it at the time. She often sat up reading or marking schoolwork.

I did not look out again. I wrote until approximately half past ten, then went upstairs to bed. I read a chapter of a book on the Exeter diocese history and turned off the light at about eleven.

I must address the matter of the attendance registers. Miss Roper spoke to me on Wednesday afternoon. She had been examining the quarterly returns and found that the numbers recorded did not match her own daily registers. There were, I believe, eight names listed who had in fact returned to London or moved to other billets outside the parish.

I did enter those names. I will not deny it. The grant from the County Council is calculated per pupil, and the school has been losing children as evacuees drift back to London or are moved to other districts. The grant has fallen in consequence. At the same time, the vicarage roof needs work that I cannot afford on my stipend. It was wrong. I know that. I told Miss Roper I would correct the returns myself and write to the Education Officer.

She said that was not sufficient. She said she intended to write to the Officer herself. We had words. I will not pretend otherwise. But it was a conversation between two people who had known each other for twenty years. There was no shouting. There were no threats. I left the schoolhouse feeling that I had earned her disappointment, and I had.

I have a key to the school building as chairman of managers. I do not have a key to the schoolhouse itself. There is a connecting door between the school corridor and the schoolhouse hallway, but I cannot tell you whether it was locked or bolted on Thursday. I did not try it. I was not in the school on Thursday. My key has been on my desk in the study all week. You may examine it if you wish.

Mrs Simmonds came to the vicarage at about twenty to eight on Friday morning. She was in a state. I went to the schoolhouse with her and saw Miss Roper in the chair. I touched nothing. I came back to the vicarage and telephoned the police from the hall. My hand was shaking so badly it took me two attempts to dial the number.

I cannot think who would have done this. Miss Roper could be firm. She made enemies, if that is not too strong a word. Goss certainly. But this village has lived with Miss Roper's firmness for thirty years. Why would it become intolerable now?

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Statement read over and confirmed by the Reverend Fenton.

Statement of Mr Harold Goss

Taken at Home Farm, Combeford, on the 18th day of April 1941, by Inspector G. Jennings.

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I'll tell you straight, Inspector, because that's how I do things. I didn't like the woman. Thirty years she'd been in that school, and thirty years she'd been poking her nose into business that wasn't hers. She was a good teacher, I'll grant her that. The children could read and write and cipher by the time they left her. My own two, before the war took them, came out of that school able to manage a ledger. But she had a way of deciding she knew best about everything. The school field. The parish council. The way farmers run their own land.

That field has been sitting idle since 1918. Good Devon soil, three quarters of an acre, south-facing, and she wouldn't let a man turn a furrow on it because the children needed somewhere to play their games. We're at war. There are people going hungry. I wrote to the War Ag and asked them to requisition it. Miss Roper wrote to the County Education Officer. The Education Officer sided with her. A man from Exeter who's never grown a turnip in his life, telling a Devon farmer he can't plough a field. That's the world we're living in.

Yes, I said what I said at the council meeting. "That woman will be the ruin of this village." I meant it. I don't retract a word. But saying a thing in front of the whole parish and doing harm in the dark are two different matters, Inspector, and you know it.

My ARP rounds on Thursday night. I started at nine from the farm, as I always do. Down the lane past the church, along to the crossroads, back through the village, check the blackout on every house. I carry my torch and my log book and I mark down where I am every quarter hour. You've seen the book. It's all there.

Now. You'll see there's a gap. Half past nine to a quarter past ten. I'll be honest with you because lying about it would look worse. I went down to Lower Combeford. The Lamb and Flag. I had a pint. One pint. Tom Weeks was behind the bar and he'll tell you if you ask him, though I'd rather you didn't broadcast it. An ARP warden drinking on duty is a matter for the county, and I don't need the trouble. I've been doing these patrols since September '39 without missing a night. A man is entitled to one pint.

I was back on the lane by a quarter past ten. I finished my rounds and went home at half past eleven. I did not go near the schoolhouse. I did not go through the schoolhouse garden. My boots pick up that red clay every night because the lane is thick with it from the farm entrance to the church.

I didn't know she was dead until Fenton telephoned the farm at eight o'clock on Friday morning. My wife answered. She came out to the barn where I was milking and told me. I went straight up to the schoolhouse. Coombe was already there, standing in the garden looking as though he wished he'd stayed in Newton Abbot.

I did not like Miss Roper. Half the village didn't like her, though they'll say different now she's dead. But I had no cause to kill her. The school field was settled. I lost. I was sore about it, but a man doesn't kill over a field.

The letter to the War Ag about my feed stores. Yes, I know about it. Anonymous, but the handwriting was a schoolmistress's handwriting if I ever saw one. Copperplate. She denied it when I asked her, but she wouldn't meet my eye. It doesn't matter now.

I've nothing more to say about it. You can check with Tom Weeks at the Lamb. He'll remember. I was the only one in the public bar.

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Statement read over and confirmed by Mr Goss.

Statement of Mrs Dora Simmonds

Taken at the Village Hall, Combeford, on the 18th day of April 1941, by Inspector G. Jennings.

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I am the billeting officer for the parishes of Combeford, Dunswell, Lower Combeford, and Bridford Cross. I have held the position since the evacuees began arriving in September 1939. It is a voluntary appointment under the Women's Voluntary Service, although I also receive a small salary as part-time clerk to the village hall committee. My husband is away with the Royal Engineers. My daughter Pamela, who is nineteen, lives with me at Orchard Cottage, which is on the lane between the church and the crossroads.

I will set down what I know in order. I find that order is the best way to be useful, and I should like to be useful.

On Thursday the 17th of April I visited Miss Roper at the schoolhouse at approximately half past four in the afternoon. I went to discuss the placement of a new evacuee child, a boy of eight who had arrived on the Wednesday train from Paddington. Small, pale, no coat. The label round his neck still had the London postmark. I needed Miss Roper's view on whether there was room in her class. We spoke in the sitting room. She made tea. We discussed the boy and agreed he could start on Monday. I left at about five o'clock. Miss Roper seemed her usual self. She was marking exercise books while we talked. She could hold a conversation and correct long division at the same time. I have never known anyone else who could do that.

At approximately eight o'clock that evening I walked to Mrs Bewes's cottage to deliver a billeting form. Mrs Bewes is an evacuee mother from London, billeted in one of the Glebe cottages, about two hundred yards down the lane from the schoolhouse. I knocked and she came to the door. She seemed a little out of sorts. She took the form but did not invite me in, which was unusual. She is normally friendly enough. I put it down to tiredness. Managing two children alone is no small thing, and Mrs Bewes has had no word from her husband in months.

I returned home by half past eight. Pamela and I listened to the wireless for the rest of the evening. We heard the nine o'clock news and a programme after that. Pamela went to bed at about half past nine. I stayed up until about a quarter past ten, then locked the door and went up myself.

On Friday morning I left the house at twenty past seven, as I do every Friday, to walk to the village hall. My usual route takes me past the schoolhouse. I always call in on Miss Roper on Friday mornings to collect any attendance figures or notes about the evacuee children. It has been my habit since the beginning.

The front door of the schoolhouse was locked. I went round to the kitchen door at the back, which was unlatched. This was not unusual. Miss Roper never locked the kitchen door. I came through the kitchen into the hall and called out. No answer. I went into the sitting room.

Miss Roper was in her armchair by the fireplace. The fire was out, nothing but grey ash. The room was cold. There was a cup of cocoa on the side table. I could see the skin on the top of it. A cushion was on the floor at her feet. Her spectacles were hanging from the cord around her neck.

I spoke to her. She did not respond. I stepped closer and touched her hand. It was cold. Not merely cool. Cold. I have felt that cold once before, when my mother died. You do not mistake it.

I went immediately to the vicarage. Reverend Fenton was in the hall. He came back with me to the schoolhouse, looked in, and then went to telephone the police.

I have a key to the school building because I use the school office to store my billeting records and correspondence. It is the office adjoining the main classroom. This office has no connecting door to the schoolhouse. The connecting door between the school corridor and the schoolhouse hallway is a separate door, and I do not have a key to it. I have never used that door. My business is with the office, not with Miss Roper's private rooms.

I should mention one other thing. Miss Roper and I did not always see eye to eye on the evacuee placements. She had strong views about the welfare of the children and she was not shy about expressing them. She wrote a letter to the WVS county organiser in March, Mrs Cathcart in Exeter, complaining about two boys I had placed with Mr Truscott at Bridge Farm. She believed they were being used as labour. I believe the boys were learning useful skills and were well fed and housed. It was a difference of opinion, not a feud. Mrs Cathcart wrote to me about it and I replied. The matter was under review.

I had no reason to wish Miss Roper harm. She was a difficult woman to work with but she cared about the children, and in wartime that counts for a great deal.

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Statement read over and confirmed by Mrs Simmonds.