extreme shock had registered on her features. Her counsel approached her and an earnest exchange took place.
The corridor outside was abuzz with Wigfull's announcement. Every phone was occupied by the press. In the crush, Diamond managed to catch Jackman's eye. He was in animated conversation with a grey-suited, silver-haired man who had to be Siddons, the solicitor, but their words were lost in the turmoil. They both gestured to Diamond to join them. He had some difficulty. Someone – a reporter – recognized him and asked for a comment. He refused point-blank and forced a passage through the jostling, shouting crowd.
'What do you make of it?' Jackman demanded, and then answered his own question with, 'It's devastating. Couldn't be worse. I thought my showing yesterday was damaging enough, but this on top… a disaster.'
'It looks bad,' Diamond agreed.
'They wouldn't have fitted her up, would they?'
Siddons, shocked, said, 'Come now!'
Diamond said, 'No chance. John Wigfull isn't the sort. He plays the rules. And I can vouch for Keith Halliwell. No, they found the letters for sure.'
'Why didn't they find them before? They searched the place weeks ago.'
'Two possibilities,' said Diamond. 'Either someone overlooked them, or they weren't there at the time.'
'Weren't there?'
'Feel like a drive to Bath?'
On the dual carriageway near Keynsham, Jackman unburdened himself of some guilt. 'You know, I felt a bloody hypocrite when I was giving evidence yesterday. I had to make it appear as if all my dealings with Dana were altruistic… that I acted out of sympathy for young Mat. I like the boy, it's true, and I enjoyed taking him swimming, but I looked forward to every meeting with Dana. You know. I've tried to explain.'
'Say so, then,' said Diamond, ever a man for frank speaking. 'You love her.'
'All right,' Jackman muttered. 'I do. I was hoping against all the odds that the jury wouldn't convict. Then I was going to ask her to come to America with me. And the boy. A clean break for all of us.' He sighed. 'No chance of that now.'
'You believe she did it?'
'I can't believe that, feeling as I do about her, but I can't see that she'll get off now.'
Diamond didn't comment.
They drove up to Lyncombe and the terraced block where Dana had lived. A uniformed constable was stationed by the front door. They could see him from the end of the street.
'Drive on. There's a way into the back garden from the street behind,' Diamond said, recalling the day Dana had escaped to her car when he and Wigfull had called at the house.
He picked his trilby off the back seat and covered his bandaged head. Without obvious subterfuge, but in silence, they entered the back garden and approached the back of the house. Diamond bent to examine the door- frame, and in particular the lock. It was an old-fashioned mortice that had probably been in use for forty years. By aligning his eye with the edge of the door, he spotted the shapes of finger-bolts at top and bottom. No one had forced an entry that way.
He examined the kitchen windows and found no signs, but when he came to the sash window to the sitting room and traced his finger along the lower edge, he located a distinct indentation in the painted surface of the ledge.
He invited Jackman to feel it.
'The window's fastened securely inside,'Jackman said. 'I wouldn't say it's been forced.'
'We'll find out presently.' Diamond returned down the garden path and got into the car. 'Would you drive us round to the front?'
This gave the impression that they were just arriving. The young constable at the door recognized him as he opened the gate. 'Mr Diamond?'
'We'd like to see inside, if you don't mind.'
'Sir, I'm under instructions from Mr Wigfull.'
'You'd better come in with us then, and see we don't steal the silver.'
Whether or not the news of Diamond's departure from the force had percolated to this level of the uniformed branch, the voice of authority prevailed. With the constable in tow, they went straight to the back sitting room and examined the window-fastening. The frame had a substantial brass fitting of the kind that rotated on a pin and slotted snugly into a catch to secure both sections of the window in the closed position.
'Nothing wrong with that,' Jackman observed.
Diamond turned to the constable. 'See if you can find me a screwdriver, lad.'
A few minutes later he unfastened the four screws that held the main fitting in place, and lifted it clear of the wood. Then he stood back. 'See what you make of that.'
If Diamond's tone of voice wasn't quite so self-admiring as Wigfull's had been in court, it was a near-run thing. It was undeniable that the wood below the fastening had recently been splintered. You could see where the screws had been forced. Tiny splinters of clean, white wood had been jammed into the holes to give the screws something to bite into when they were replaced.
'The intruder got in this way and tidied up afterwards,' he said. 'I spotted a chip of fresh wood on the floor between the boards. Years ago, in the days when real detectives worked out of Scotland Yard, we had a saying: 'Give your eyes a chance'.'
Ideally, the dictum merited a moment's contemplation. It got none at all from Jackman. 'When was the break-in? Last night?'
'Could have been any time in the past two weeks. The letters were hidden upstairs ready to be discovered if and when they were needed.'
Diamond grinned from ear to ear. After so many months in the doghouse he was entitled to be satisfied. The discovery was detective work at its finest, worthy to secure his place in the pantheon with Fabian of the Yard and the other trilby-hatted heroes of yesteryear.
Chapter Four
LILIAN BARGAINER, QC, DISPOSED OF John Wigfull next morning with appropriate irony.
'Chief Inspector, the entire literary establishment salutes you today for recovering the missing letters of Miss Jane Austen. The newspapers are bracketing your name with Sherlock Holmes and Miss Marple. Pray, how did you make this happy discovery? Was it, to paraphrase Miss Austen herself, the result of previous study, or the impulse of the moment? Was it sense, or sensibility, that guided you to the hiding place?'
Wigfull frowned and said, Tm afraid I don't follow the question.'
'I'm surprised it causes any difficulty to a man of your acuteness. Let me put it another way. Who tipped you off?'
He swayed back like a boxer. Tm unable to answer that.'
'Somebody did, presumably. Surely you didn't order the search of the house yesterday morning on a whim?'
'Well, no.'
'So…?'
Wigfull passed the tip of his tongue slowly around his lips.
After an appreciable pause, Mrs Bargainer said, 'Do you understand what I am asking this time?'
'Yes.'
'Then you really must give an answer.'
He said softly, 'There was a phone call -'
'Speak up, Chief Inspector.'
'There was a phone call to the main police station in Bath late the previous evening. The caller rang off before we could get his name.'
'So you were tipped off. You didn't tell us this in your statement yesterday.'
