the realization that I should never have been fool enough to come here without taking some precaution.”
“Oh, and what precaution?”
“It is in the form of a time limit. If I am not back at my hotel by eight o’clock, the police at Flaxborough will receive a packet containing your letters.”
“And my name and address, no doubt,” added Trelawney carelessly.
“No—just the means of learning them with singularly little trouble.”
“How little?”
“Simply a peep into the files of that excellent matrimonial bureau, Jack dear. Or should I say Mr Four-one- double-two?”
For a moment, he looked genuinely puzzled. Then he smiled, grinned, began to laugh aloud.
Miss Teatime heard a door close behind her. She looked round quickly.
“But surely you didn’t imagine that my husband’s name would be on the files, Miss Teatime? There isn’t a four-one-double-two. I think a burglar must have lifted it.”
Donald Staunch rose and grasped his wife’s arm.
“The car,” he said. “Get it out of sight somewhere and come straight back. I’ll want you to stay with her while I...see to things.”
Inspector Purbright found Love at his lodgings, being dotingly administered a late high tea by his landlady, Mrs Cusson.
He plucked him from the scarcely begun feast of buttered haddock, wholemeal scones, tinned oranges, Carnation milk and Eccles cakes; bustled him past a tearfully protesting Mrs Cusson, enemy of malnutrition; and thrust him to the car.
“You drive, Sid. Hunger’s good for alertness.”
It seemed a pretty good propellant as well. They were passing through Benstone Ferry less than twenty minutes later.
“Up here and across the common,” Purbright directed.
Four minutes more.
“First turning off on the right, now. Mind, it’s sharp.”
The car crunched to a stop on the gravel before Brookside Cottage. Purbright reached the door first. He knocked sharply and repeatedly on the thick wood.
Pausing, he heard movement within the house. The sergeant was beside him now.
“They’re in,” said Purbright. Again he knocked. They heard footsteps inside. The steps receded. Purbright knocked even harder.
“Sid, you’d better go round to...No, wait a bit.” The footsteps were coming back. The door opened.
“Good evening, Mrs Staunch.” Without further preliminary, the inspector stepped past her, followed immediately by Love.
Sylvia Staunch turned from the door and stared at them furiously.
“Would you kindly explain what this is all about.”
“Where is Miss Teafime?”
“Miss
“Your client. Miss Teatime. I have reason to believe she came here to see your husband.”
“Why on earth should she want to see my husband? He has nothing whatever to...”
“Is he in, Mrs Staunch?”
“Not at the moment, no.”
Love looked at the inspector. “Both cars are in the garage, sir.”
“Well, Mrs Staunch?”
“I think he’s gone to post a letter.”
Her composure was being re-established, her bewilderment more artistically controlled.
“But I am not going to stand here and have questions fired at me without knowing the reason for them. What authority have you got to come trampling in here, anyway?”
“We suspect felony, Mrs Staunch. That may be a somewhat stuffy answer, but it will serve at least until your husband returns.” He drew a curtain aside and peered out. “Which I trust will not be long. How far away is the post box?”
“At the end of the lane.”
“Odd that we did not see him.”
“There’s a path from the back. It’s quicker.”
Purbright nodded. He motioned Mrs Staunch to sit down.
“I might as well tell you now,” he said to her, “that we shall probably ask your husband to return to Flaxborough with us.”
