I have been thinking over the situation with regard to the serial rights, & I think Miss Sutherland might well be jolted. She really is not treating me at all fairly. When you consider that I rushed the book on so that she might receive it early in December, & further made alterations in the story at her request, & handed them in three days before Christmas, her dilatoriness is not only inconsiderate but extremely rude into the bargain. I do not wish to hear from her that the altered succession is to blame. I don’t doubt that it has given her a lot of work to do, but I can hardly believe that her papers are to be allowed to lapse because of it. Presumably they are all appearing just as usual. Saving your presence, she is treating me to a startling example of the folly of Woman at the Helm. A bigger example of incompetence than this going into a flat spin would be hard to come by. All she has to do is to read through the first 4 chapters, as corrected by me (or to delegate this task to a subordinate) which will occupy perhaps half an hour of her valuable time.

I should like to make a point quite clear to the lady. If she reads an M.S. of mine &, disliking it, turns it down, I have no cause for complaint. But when she holds my M.S. from the beginning of December to the middle of January without giving me any definite reply, & in the knowledge that by so doing she is ruining all chance of finding another market for it I have a great deal of cause for complaint.

It would be as well if she were to ask herself whether I am very likely to offer her any further stories. And I will take the opportunity to repeat in writing what I think I said to you the other day: If Miss Sutherland refuses the M.S., or postpones its publication in serial form to the prejudice of H. &S's publication of it in book form no further MSs of mine are to be offered to her. I am now working on the Waterloo** book, which, though not precisely a sequel, follows on to [sic] Regency Buck. If she wants this she’d better get a move on with They Found Him Dead. If she doesn’t – well, she knows what to do about it.

If she finds it incredible that I should be prepared to sever relations with her you can, if you choose, tell her that her handling of my work has from start to finish been an annoyance to me; her criticisms always seem to me illiterate, & her alterations even more so. Accompany these compliments by any rude gesture that suggests itself to you.

If she pulls herself together, & sends you a cheque, I think she might as well have the Waterloo book.

But as she doesn’t seem to me to like my mysteries I should much prefer to tackle a different market for the next. I shall do my best to let you have it in good time, so that you will have plenty of opportunity to find another opening.