When The Green Man's Away, 2: The Tie that Chokes

The lead had taken me to a quiet house in Olive Avenue. The address was embossed on the leather of the lead.
I rang the doorbell and waited, humming a little tune to myself while I did so. It was a nice sort of house, the kind of place I could settle down with The Green Man if he'd only start thinking of me that way rather than as a sort of glorified understudy. There were roses round the door, a big garden, a large dog-kennel. Well, that would have to go. My cats wouldn't like it...
A dog kennel. And I was carrying a dog lead. But there was no barking. Yet there were lights on indoors, and I could hear the television.
Quickly I peered through the letterbox. It's a bad habit lady vigilantes get into.
I saw the front hall. Everything was in order.
"Hi?" I called. Still no answer.
Probably most people would have posted the lead through the box. Not me. Leaving my grey raincoat on the gate, I ran round to the back of the house and started to climb the trellis that supported the rose. Sometimes being small is an advantage. Just not when you want to see over the heads of a crowd.
I made my entrance through an open window and in the room I abandoned my civilian clothes, revealing my Girl in Grey costume underneath. Silent as a cat (I learned from Samantha), I moved to the door, onto the landing. I hurried down the stairs and into the living-room of the house.
There I saw the man who was the owner. But he was dead, strangled with a necktie. Which was odd, as he was an Anglican clergyman and they don't wear ties. Quickly I examined the tie. It had a monogram on it, 'D.V.J.'
Who could that be? Quick as a flash my photographic memory furnished me with a name - Derec Vedder Jones, notorious Welsh master-criminal. What could Jones be up to? All I knew was that, with the Green Man away, I had to try to find out. And while he has his mysterious agents of vengeance, I just have some cats.