The next thing to consider, thought Dover, rather pleased with the neat logical way he was dealing with this, was the method of delivery via Sir John Counter’s bank. How many people knew the address of Sir John’s bank in London? Well, his daughter certainly would, for one, and so would Mrs Chubb-Smith, because Sir John presumably paid his rent by cheque and the cheque would have the bank’s address on it. But why bother to send the letter to Sir John’s bank at all? Did it mean that the kidnapper didn’t know Sir John’s address at Irlam Old Hall? No, Dover shook his head firmly, that was quite out of the question. He couldn’t believe that anybody, no matter how remotely connected with the case, would not know Sir John’s home address. He put this point aside for the moment and moved on to the really vital bit of evidence that the envelope provided – the postmarks.
The letter had been posted in the first instance in the West End of London at midday on Saturday, That meant that the person who posted it was in London at midday on Saturday. Well, Dover sighed hopelessly and scratched his stomach, this either widened the field to something in the neighbourhood of ten million people or narrowed it to one person in Juliet’s circle of acquaintances who was away from home all day on Saturday. Say four or five hours’ journey up to London in the morning and four or five hours back again – anybody who’d been away that length of time should be easy enough to trace.
With a bit of an effort Dover identified Saturday in his mind. That was the day his stomach was upset, wasn’t it? Yes, he’d spent Friday night hopping backwards and forwards to the bathroom and his guts were still queasy the next morning. Now then, who had he interviewed on the Saturday? There was Eulalia Hoppold and Boris Bogolepov for a start – he’d seen them twice, once in the morning and once in the afternoon. Then he’d questioned young Michael Chubb-Smith and his wife, and the caretaker, Bondy, up at the Old Hall itself. And who else? Oh yes, Basil Freel and his sister, Amy. Well, that was seven people straight off who couldn’t possibly have posted that letter in London. Right, as soon as tomorrow’s little caper in the ladies’ convenience was over, providing the whole case wasn’t solved – which he very much doubted – young Master MacGregor could get off his elegant backside and do a bit of routine checking on all the rest of the characters. He could find out who was away all day Saturday and who knew the address of Sir John’s bank. That might turn up something really useful!
Of course, the thought depressed him, there was more than one way of getting a letter posted in London than physically putting it in the letter-box yourself. Somebody down here might have an accomplice in London who could post the letter, or you could just send it to a friend and say, please post this for me. But that was a bit risky, wasn’t it? Friends being what they were might wonder why you couldn’t post the letter yourself, might even open the damned thing. After all, Juliet’s disappearance had been mentioned pretty widely in the press by Saturday and the friend might recognize the Irlam Old Hall address and . . . Hello now, was that why the letter was addressed to Sir John’s bank in London? So that somebody wouldn’t recognize the Irlam Old Hall address and start wondering? Dover felt a bit more cheerful-he was sure he’d solved one bit of the puzzle, not that it helped all that much.
With a sigh he lit another cigarette and reached for the photostat of the ransom note which MacGregor had got for him. He read it through again, carefully, and frowned. Now that he had time to look at the blasted thing closely, well, he had to admit that it did seem a bit odd. Take the money, for example. Demanding money with menaces was a felony, and anybody found guilty of it was likely to cop a good long stretch of imprisonment from the judge. For a lousy five hundred pounds it didn’t really seem worth it, not when you considered all the trouble and expense of kidnapping a grown girl and keeping her in hiding until the ransom was paid. For five thousand pounds, say, the game might be worth the candle, but for five hundred pounds? Of course, perhaps that was all the market would stand. Dover didn’t think for one moment that anybody would cough up five thousand pounds just to get Juliet Rugg back safe and well. But, in that case, why kidnap Juliet Rugg? Why not go for someone with a higher price on her head?
Then there was the business of the usual warning, ‘Don’t try any tricks and don’t tell the police.’ That was a pretty routine sort of threat but, if the police were not to be informed, why was the main evidence that
