'A missing person alert has gone out to all our patrols. We can't do more,' Diamond explained, 'unless there's something else you want to tell us.'
Joe's voice shrilled in outrage. 'What do you mean? I told you all I know.'
'Then you've got to be patient, sir.'
'I'm doing my best.' He sighed, and made an effort to unwind. 'Anyone want a drink?'
The room had its own cocktail cabinet. The guardians of the law shook their heads.
'Well, I'm having a scotch,' Joe declared.
'How did you know the woman in the mortuary is Miss Redbird?' Diamond asked him when he had poured the drink.
'Didn't I say? I met her yesterday.'
'In her shop?'
'In her shop, right.'
'Pure chance, or what?'
'No, I was directed there. You want to know how it happened?' He went to the chest of drawers and took out his precious book, the edition of Milton's poems, and showed them the inscription on the cover and explained why he believed this was Mary Shelley's personal copy. In a dogged account that revealed the persistence of his character, he took them through the various steps of his quest to trace the previous owners: Hay-on-Wye; the Abbey Churchyard; O. Heath, the retired bookseller; Uncle Evan at the Brains Surgery; and Peg Redbird at Noble and Nude.
Diamond was a brooding, restless listener to all this. 'You make it all sound reasonable,' he responded finally. 'The part I don't understand is where you thought this trail was leading. Surely you weren't expecting to trace the book all the way back to Mary Shelley?'
'You never can tell.' A faint smile followed, edged with self-congratulation.
'We're listening,' said Diamond, becoming intrigued.
So they heard the remarkable story Peg Redbird had given Joe, of the writing box that had once contained the book.
At this John Wigfull cut into the narrative. 'This is the box you told me about this morning, the one that was locked, and you went back for?'
'Correct.'
'You didn't tell me it belonged to Mary Shelley. You said it was an antique.'
'That's the truth.'
'No, professor, that's evasion.'
Joe Dougan shrugged and spread his hands. 'I can't say for certain it belonged to her.'
Wigfull was furious. 'You went back to the shop at the end of the evening because you believed it was hers. You didn't say a damned thing about Mary Shelley this morning.'
'What's your problem?' said Joe. 'Donna is gone. That's all that matters to me. Can't you appreciate that?'
Diamond broke up the exchange before Wigfull burst a blood vessel. 'Let's move on. Would you mind telling me what happened when you went back to Noble and Nude?'
'Nothing happened. Miss Redbird wasn't there.'
'The shop was closed, you mean?'
'No, it was open.'
'But unattended?'
He nodded.
Wigfull blurted out accusingly, 'You didn't tell me any of this.'
'You didn't ask.'
'You implied she was there. You said you spent some time trying to unlock the box.'
Joe remarked as if to a child, 'You got it. I sat down in her office to wait for her. The writing box was still on her desk and so were the tins of keys, so I tried some more. But the lady didn't show up at all. In the end I thought about Donna alone here and I gave up.'
Diamond said with more control than Wigfull, 'Are you telling us the whole story this time, professor?'
Joe seemed to shrink a little into the thick upholstery. 'I'm doing the best I can.'
'When you found the shop unattended, did you make any effort to find Miss Redbird?'
'I called her name. There was no answer.'
'A golden opportunity to try more keys on the precious box. Did you get it open?'
Joe looked away, out of the window, as if he wanted to be anywhere else but here.
'Did you hear my question?' Diamond pressed him.
'I don't know what she did with the damned key.'
'You must have been tempted to force the lock.'
'It crossed my mind a couple of times, but I didn't do it.'
'The box is still intact, then?'
'Should be. That's how I left it.'
'On Miss Redbird's desk?'
'Yep.'
'And you say she didn't show up at all?'
'That's the truth of it.'
'How long were you there?'
'Hour and a quarter, hour and a half.'
'Did anyone see you?'
'No one I noticed.'
Diamond continued to probe. If Peg Redbird
'When you found the shop open and let yourself in, did you notice any sign of a disturbance?'
'No, sir, I did not.'
'Any damage would be obvious in an antique shop, I imagine.
Joe gave him an abstracted look. 'What did you say?'
'Things get knocked over if people fight in a place like that.'
'You're losing me.'
'Everything was as you'd seen it before?'
'I guess so.'
'We can assume, then, that she left the shop before you arrived, and nobody forced her to go.'
Joe Dougan was a tired, troubled man, and he had reached the limit of his patience. 'All you guys want to talk about is this dead woman. She's gone. No one can help her now. You should be finding out what happened to my wife, for God's sake. Don't you have any priorities?'
They left soon after.
' WHAT DID you make of that?' Diamond asked in the car.
Wigfull sniffed. 'He spins a good yarn.'
'Do you think it's all an act-his concern about the wife?'
'I caught him out over Peg Redbird, didn't I? He changed his story.'
'He was pretty uncomfortable about it.'
'The man's a killer,' said Wigfull. 'We should have taken him in.'
'I don't know what you base that on.'
'He was at the scene, wasn't he? He went to the shop the evening she was killed. He admits that now. He coveted that box. It was an obsession with him. You've got to understand the mentality of these people who buy antiques. They spot a bargain and nothing will put them off. But Peg Redbird was a canny dealer. She guessed the value of the box from the way he conducted himself. I expect she made the fatal mistake of trying to withdraw it from sale. He saw the prize being snatched away and he lashed out. If that isn't motive enough, I don't know what is.'
'He comes across as a mild character.'