A Spaniel, Unbothered

When they found Mr Aldous dead in his locked study, the only living thing in the house was his spaniel, and the spaniel was not, by any measure, distressed. I was brought in because I am the sort of woman a village brings in: too old to gossip with, too nosy to ignore. The constable wanted it called natural. The door was locked from the inside, the window latched, the man sixty-eight and fond of his port. Natural is a tidy word. I have never trusted a tidy word, and I trusted this one even less once I had met the dog.