“I doubt it. Maybe she put it somewhere and put it back after the police had left. Although, why someone would want to keep a Dear John—or, in her case, Dear Jane—letter is beyond me. I’d better tell the police. Damn! It’s not like the old days. I don’t want to get on the wrong side of them. I want Bill Wong because he might trade some information. I’m not going to talk to anyone else. I’ll go to police headquarters. You come with me, Harry. I’ll phone Patrick and get him to liaise with you, Phil. Unless he’s got a hot lead on any of the men who accessed that Web site, I want you to get to some of Smedley’s staff and find out who else Haviland was romancing.”
She telephoned Patrick and gave him instructions and then said to Phil, “He’ll meet you in the square in fifteen minutes.”
Agatha was told Bill Wong was out on a case. She and Harry waited in reception.
While they waited, a policeman and policewoman came out, putting on their helmets. “Where are you off to?” asked the desk sergeant.
“Folks up in Bewdley Road are complaining some hysterical woman’s been harassing them. Honestly, if it weren’t a posh area, we wouldn’t have to bother.”
When they had left, Harry whispered, “Could you step outside for a moment?”
Agatha followed him out.
“What?”
“I told Joyce my name was James Henderson and I lived with my parents on Bewdley Road. They actually live in a cottage out in the country. She’s a greedy thing and must be frantic at the idea of a rich young man slipping through her fingers. I bet it’s her.”
“Serves her right.”
“Where’s Charles?”
“Decided to sleep late. Oh, here’s Bill. Bill, we must talk to you urgently. We’ve got important information.”
He walked them through to the interview room and listened intently while Agatha told him about the letter. Then he read it.
Bill leaned back in his chair. “Agatha, have you thought for a moment what Wilkes will say when he finds out how you went about getting this letter? Young Harry here lying about his name and job and then stealing it while she was asleep? He’ll come down on you like a ton of bricks.”
“Couldn’t you just say we found it and cannot reveal our sources?”
“You’re not a journalist.”
“Say it was delivered to our office anonymously this morning,” said Harry.
“Come on, Bill,” urged Agatha. “It’s too important a piece of information to hold back. If you tell the truth and get us into trouble, what’ll happen to Harry?”
“I know,” said Harry. “There’s nothing wrong with part of the truth. Say Joyce picked me up in a tea shop. I made a date with her because she didn’t know who I worked for and I thought I might get some information by taking her out for dinner. She drank too much. I took her home. She invited me in for coffee, went to make it and disappeared. I went to look for her and found her dead asleep in the bedroom. I searched her bureau because that’s my job and found the letter.”
“So far, so good. But he’ll be furious at you for taking the letter away.”
“If you give me an hour, I’ll put it back,” said Harry.
“How?”
“I’ll find a way. Please.”
“I should be shot for agreeing to this. Okay. But if you’re caught, I know nothing about it.”
“Thanks.” Harry took the letter and left.
“Now Bill,” said Agatha. “What about giving me some crumbs of information?”
“As long as you don’t say you got it from me.”
“Of course.”
“Burt Haviland’s bank account reveals that in the past six months he received two payments of twenty thousand pounds each.”
“Blackmail?”
“Could be. It was paid in cash. The teller who took the payments has left the bank and is now on holiday in Turkey. We’re trying to find her.”
“I keep wondering if all these murders aren’t connected in some way,” said Agatha.
“Maybe. You’d better get off. I’ll tell everyone it was just a friendly call. Oh, by the way, my parents are still thrilled with that lamp.”
“Good.”
“They only wish they could afford the other one.” “What other one?”
“There’s a blue one in the shop now and Mum thinks it would be a companion to the other. I’d buy it, but I’m overdrawn at the bank as it is.”
Agatha repressed a sigh. “I’ll get it for them.”
“No, it’s too much. Don’t even think of it.”
It was only when Agatha had paid for the other lamp and sent it off in a taxi that she reflected that Mr. Wong ran a very successful dry-cleaning business and could easily have afforded it. But she got a warm feeling just thinking how pleased Bill would be.
Harry went to his flat first. Wearing a pair of thin latex gloves, he took out an envelope similar to the one containing the letter and copied out a forgery of the “By Hand” legend. The police did not have his fingerprints but they might have Agatha’s. Of course they also might wonder why there were no fingerprints on the envelope at all, but that was a minor problem. Then he realized that his fingerprints and Agatha’s would be all over the letter itself. He would need to replace it with a copy. He ran off a copy on his printer. Then he dressed himself in a pair of worker’s overalls he had once used when he was painting his flat. He padded out his cheeks, dug into a box of costumes he had worn when he was in the school dramatic society and found a heavy fake moustache, which he glued on with spirit gum. Putting on a pair of dark sunglasses and pulling a baseball cap down low on his head, he went out and stopped off at a hardware shop to buy a toolbox. He set off on his motorbike and left it at the end of Joyce’s street.
He walked boldly up to Joyce’s front door and rang the bell. She opened the door. He felt a guilty pang when he saw her eyes were red with weeping.
“What is it?”
Joyce lived in a terraced house. Harry flashed his student rail card so quickly that no one could possibly have seen it clearly and said, “I’m from the council. Your neighbours are worried about subsidence. Just going to check the walls.”
“Come in. Don’t be long. I’ve got to go out.”
Harry made a great show of tapping the walls. The trouble was Joyce followed his every move. He was just wondering how he could ever put that letter back without her noticing when there was a ring at the doorbell.
Harry heard a stem voice. “Detective Inspector Wilkes. We have a warrant to search these premises.”
Harry heard Joyce complain. “I’m not letting you in. You’ve already searched them.”
“If you do not let us in, we will need to take you down to the station.”
Harry ran lightly up the stairs. He slipped the letter back into the drawer, opened the bedroom window, threw his toolbox into the back garden, stepped out and, hanging on to the drainpipe, closed the window and slithered down. Thanking his stars that the back of Joyce’s house was not overlooked by any other houses and was a jungle of untended trees and bushes which shielded him from Joyce’s neighbours on either side, he made his way out by the back garden gate, along a lane and out into the main road.
How had Wilkes been able to move so quickly?
The fact was that Bill had told Wilkes almost immediately he had heard a rumour that Joyce had been having an affair with Haviland and that evidence of that may have been overlooked during the initial search. Although he had expected it would take some time to get a search warrant, Wilkes had pointed out that the original search warrant was still legal, called together a search team, and set out.
Bill hoped that Harry, who he believed was probably out on the street, watching the house and waiting for Joyce to leave, would not be discovered.
Joyce tried to follow the search team upstairs, but Wilkes had brought along a policewoman who ushered
