ut from this projecting window,
her own house was at right angles on her left, the street in question
plunged steeply downwards in front of her, and to her right she
commanded an uninterrupted view of its further course which terminated
in the disused graveyard surrounding the big Norman church. Anything of
interest about the church, however, could be gleaned from a guide-book,
and Miss Mapp did not occupy herself much with such coldly venerable
topics. Far more to her mind was the fact that between the church and
her strategic window was the cottage in which her gardener lived, and
she could thus see, when not otherwise engaged, whether he went home
before twelve, or failed to get back to her garden again by one, for he
had to cross the street in front of her very eyes. Similarly she could
observe whether any of his abandoned family ever came out from her
garden door weighted with suspicious baskets, which might contain
smuggled vegetables. Only yesterday morning she had hurried forth with a
dangerous smile to intercept a laden urchin, with inquiries as to what
was in "that nice basket." On that occasion that nice basket had proved
to contain a strawberry net which was being sent for repair to the
gardener's wife; so there was nothing more to be done except verify its
return. This she did from a side window of the garden-room which
commanded the strawberry beds; she could sit quite close to that, for it
was screened by the large-leaved branches of a fig-tree and she could
spy unseen.

Otherwise this road to the right leading up to the church was of no
great importance (except on Sunday morning, when she could get a
practically complete list of those who attended Divine Service), for no
one of real interest lived in the humble dwellings which lined it. To
the left was the front of her own house at right angles to the strategic
window, and with regard to that a good many useful observations might
be, and were, made. She could, from behind a curtain negligently
half-drawn across the side of the window nearest the house, have an eye
on her housemaid at work, and notice if she leaned out of a window, or
made remarks to a friend passing in the street, or waved salutations
with a duster. Swift upon such discoveries, she would execute a flank
march across the few steps of garden and steal into the house,
noiselessly ascend the stairs, and catch the offender red-handed at this
public dalliance. But all such domestic espionage t