Fire in the Thatch by Edith Caroline Rivett

It was half-past four when Superintendent Bolton reached the spot where Gressingham’s Daimler had crashed into a stone wall, and he found the once magnificent car a heap of wreckage. Its owner had been removed by ambulance, under the supervision of the local doctor, who had found that Gressingham’s heart was still beating, though the nature of the head damage alone made it almost certain that his survival was impossible. He had been alone in the car, which had been seen to tear down the steep gradient, gaining speed as it descended. No one had actually seen the final crash, but the car had failed to take the turn towards the bottom of the hill and had hit the wall head-on, crumpling up with the force of its own velocity.

Moorbery hill was fifteen miles from the Mallorys, not on a main road, but on a by-road called “the old road” by the inhabitants. For centuries the only road or path between South Moorton and North Moorton had been the steep road which ascended over the ridge of moor and dropped again to the valley by a gradient which was one in four in that portion where Mr. Gressingham had come to grief. In 1920 a new road had been made along the river valley, so that very little traffic save farm carts and tractors used the old road. One of Bolton’s first questions was “What the dickens was he doing on this road at all?”