The cards lay on the hall table at number 17, neatly stamped and ready for the postbox.

The candles were lit and a sharp tang of holly and spruce laced the air with Christmas promise.

A pity, then, the festive gaiety should be marred by the dead body on the carpet.

“Heart attack,” snapped an impatient Detective Inspector Topham.

He was supposed to be taking Mrs T to the carol service down at St Margaret’s and was in no mood to linger. 

“So sad,” said Miss Dimont, who was standing in the doorway. Local newspaper reporter she may be, but she still had heart.

The detective turned.

“What the devil are you doing here?”

“Just come up from the church. The annual parish meeting. 

"They were wondering where Mrs Bell-Sampson was. She’s supposed to be taking the collection.”

“She can deliver it personally now,” snarled Topham, looking down.

“To St Peter himself.”

“That’s not very nice,” said Miss Dimont severely. Her corkscrew curls rattled in indignation and her spectacles slid down her nose. 

“A little respect, Detective Inspector. At Christmas too.”

“Come on,” said an urgent voice behind her, “not much we can do ’ere.” When he wasn’t taking photographs, Terry Eagleton could get very impatient. “We’ve still got the cheese and wine do over at the Yacht Club.”

Temple Regis in the late 1950s revelled in this new invention, mixing wine with cheese. As befitted Devon’s smartest holiday resort, it had turned its back on sherry and cups of tea as the basis for social gatherings and expected its local paper to publicise the town’s new-found sophistication.

“Hang on a minute, Terry,” was Miss Dimont’s reply, “just want to see what’s going on here. Poor Mrs Bell-Sampson.”

“No press, no photographs.” rasped the inspector, but he needn’t have bothered. Terry was already stamping back to the car. Rudyard Rhys, the Scrooge-like editor of The Riviera Express, didn’t pay his staff to stand around gawping at unfortunate corpses when they could be mixing with the crème de la crème of Temple Regis. 

“What’s that?” said Terry suspiciously. He liked Miss Dim, as the editor called her, in fact he liked her a lot. But she could be tricky, unpredictable. What, for example, was she doing with that fistful of Christmas cards in her hand?

“Mrs Bell-Sampson’s.”

“That’s evidence. What d’you think you’re doing?”

“Evidence, Terry? Didn’t you hear the inspector? She died of a heart attack – this isn’t a murder inquiry. 

I thought people would like 

these last reminders on their mantlepieces, rather than have them shovelled into a cardboard box and forgotten about. We can drop them off at the post office.”

“We’re late for the cheese and wine,” snipped Terry, sarcastic about the town’s social pretensions. “What’s that smell?”

Miss Dimont was riffling through the cards, curious to see who Mrs Bell-Sampson’s few friends were. In life she’d been an old dragon, a busybody churchwarden, and a ferocious opponent of the vicar and you could see why. The Reverend Bridgewater looked as sweet as Santa but lectured his flock as if they were being flung into their final battle, and no wonder – he was in Special Ops during the war. 

But there’d been a nasty stand-up row in the churchyard between vicar and churchwarden over the choice of Christmas hymns, and the vicar came off worst.

“It’s rather nice,” she said, sniffing the envelopes as Terry changed gear up Tuppenny Row.

“Shoe polish.”

“Pity she didn’t put some on her shoes, then, if she was going to church,” said Terry.

“Didn’t you see how muddy they were?”

“I was looking at her face. Trust you to focus on the wrong end.”

“That vicar had it in for her."

“It was mutual,” replied Miss Dimont.

“She may have been churchwarden but she used an egg timer to time his sermons. He got very upset about that.”

“He hated losing to a woman. A man like that – especially after such a valiant war – you’d almost think...”

“Shell shock makes people behave oddly. Even years later.”

The snow started to fall, sprinkling its way between the stars down on to their windscreen. 

“Christmas!” exclaimed Miss Dimont, and the smile which lit up her face made her look suddenly beautiful in the street light’s glow.

“If he wasn’t a man of the cloth, I’d swear he’d want to kill Mrs...” started Terry.

“Stop the car Terry,” said Miss Dimont suddenly.

“You’re a genius.”

Terry looked at her sideways. That wasn’t what she usually said. 

“Just the one,” said Judy.

“This one. The others don’t smell.”

“What are you...?”

“Don’t you see? These are the church Christmas cards. Sold from the church porch. By the vicar – the man who’d been humiliated by Mrs Bell-Sampson. This shoe polish you smell – well, you said it yourself, Terry – her shoes were dirty. Hadn’t seen a brush in a month of Sundays.

“What you can smell, Terry, isn’t shoe polish at all – it’s oil of mirbane – nitrobenzene.”

“Which is?”

“Smells like polish but it’s lethal. He daubed some on the flaps of the Christmas card envelopes he sold her. He knew she’d come and buy – she always does – he must have kept a small stock back, specially for her. 

“When she licked the gum it triggered the heart attack.”

“How d’you know about the nitro... wotsit?” said Terry, but he already knew the answer. Miss Dimont had had a pretty good war, too. All sorts of strange things had gone on in Naval Intelligence.

“Inspector Topham was right, then,” he smiled. “Heart attack.”

“But, Terry, he was also very wrong. Murder! No Christmas dinner for him.” 

Follow more adventures of Miss Dimont in Resort To Murder (HQ Books, £14.99).