A church warden and a magician have been arrested on suspicion of murder after two neighbours, one of whom was a lay preacher, died in mysterious circumstances within 18 months of each other in a Buckinghamshire village.

Peter Farquhar, 69, a retired teacher and university lecturer, was at first believed to have died of natural causes when he passed away in October 2015 at his home in Maids Moreton, near Milton Keynes.

However, police became suspicious last summer when his neighbour three doors away, 83-year-old Anne Moore-Martin, another retired teacher, also died suddenly after a short illness.

After months of investigation, detectives yesterday arrested two of Farquhar's former University of Buckingham students, one of whom, 27-year-old Ben Field, had church connections to Farquhar and had been lodging with him before he died, according to the Telegraph.

Field, a former English literature and journalism student, was arrested on suspicion of murdering the pair, attempting to defraud them and also burglary.

Field was a deputy church warden at Stowe Parish Church, where Farquhar was a respected member of the congregation, sometimes acting as a lay preacher. The pair would reportedly often visit sick and elderly members of the community together.

The Telegraph reported that another former student, Martyn Smith, 31, from Redruth in Cornwall, who works as a part-time magician, was also arrested on suspicion of the same offences.

The newspaper said that a third man, aged 22, was arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud and false representation.

Neighbours in the village expressed their shock. Betty Cooke, 87, who had known Farquhar for almost 20 years, said: 'Peter was the nicest man you could meet. A real gentleman. He took a man in as a lodger and I didn't see much of Peter after that.'

Field and Smith became friends of Farquhar while studying at the University of Buckingham and months before he died, the pair persuaded him to publish a handwritten manuscript that he had written 20 years previously. They also set up a company called Farquhar Studies, becoming directors of the business.

Farquhar was a Cambridge graduate who was single. He taught English at Manchester Grammar School for 34 years before moving to Stowe private school.

He fell ill in the autumn of 2015, having been fit and active, according to the Telegraph. One neighbour, who asked not to be named, told the paper: 'He was normally very fit and very well – never ill. Suddenly he started to go downhill and was feeling ill. He spiralled downwards and was taken to the Red House Nursing Home, which is just around the corner from his home.'

He returned home in October 2015 and died there in his sleep a short time later.

It was only in May last year, when Mrs Moore-Martin, who lived at her detached home just three doors away, also took ill and died, that police started to treat both deaths as suspicious.

Moore-Martin, who also never married, was a former headmistress at a Catholic primary school in Bicester and was also reportedly 'very religious'.

Neighbours said they had known Moore-Martin for more than 30 years, and that she had lived there with her elderly mother Isabel until she died in the 1990s.

A neighbour said that just days before she died, police had conducted door-to-door inquiries, during which they asked who she had been associating with. 'They wanted to know about her and if she had friends in the area. We asked what was happening and if Ann was all right, and they said, "No, she's not. She's very ill",' the neighbour said.

Another local resident, James Hancock, said: 'Anne was a friend of ours. You saw people coming and going and you didn't know who they were. With hindsight you think you could have done something. Anne became ill. She became vulnerable.'

A spokesman for Thames Valley Police said last night: 'We have made three arrests in connection with a murder investigation after two elderly residents died in Buckinghamshire. The causes of death are yet to be determined.'