‘“Darling”,’ he began, ‘I’ve got the usual sort of feelings about not being anything like good enough for you. Your last letter telling me you first liked me because I seemed a bit different from other men has made me feel rather bogus. I suppose, without being an insufferable prig, I might agree that I can at any rate bear comparison with the gang we’ve got to know—the studio lot—like Garcia and Malmsley and Co. But that’s not a hell of a compliment to myself, is it? As a matter of fact, I simply loathe seeing you in that setting. Men like Garcia have no right to be in the same room as yourself, my lovely, terrifyingly remote Valmai. I know people scream with mirth at the sound of the word ‘pure’. It’s gone all déclassé like ‘genteel’. But there is a strange sort of purity about you, Valmai, truly. If I’ve understood you, you’ve seen something of—God, this sounds frightful—something of the same sort of quality in me. Oh, darling, don’t see too much of that in me. Just because I don’t get tight and talk bawdy, I’m not a blooming Galahad, you know. This letter’s going all the wrong way. Bless you a thousand, thousand—“ I think that’s the lot, sir,’ concluded Fox.

‘Yes. I see. Any letters in Pilgrim’s room?’

‘None. He may have taken them to Ankerton Manor, chief.’

‘So he may. I’d like to see the one where Miss Seacliff praised his purity. By the Lord, Fox, she has without a doubt got a wonderful technique. She’s got that not undesirable party, who’ll be a perfectly good peer before very long, if it’s true that old Pilgrim is failing; she’s got him all besotted and wondering if he’s good enough.’ Alleyn paused and rubbed his nose. ‘Men turn peculiar when they fall in love, Brer Fox. Sometimes they turn damned peculiar, and that’s a fact.’

‘These letters,’ said Fox, tapping them with a stubby forefinger, ‘were all written before they came down here. They’ve evidently been engaged in a manner of speaking for about a month.’

‘Very possibly.’

‘Well,’ said Fox, ‘there’s nothing in these letters of Mr Pilgrim’s to contradict any ideas we may have about Garcia, is there?’

‘Nothing. What about Pilgrim’s clothes?’

‘Nothing there. Two overcoats, five suits, two pairs of odd trousers and an odd jacket. Nothing much in the pockets. His weekend suitcase hasn’t been unpacked. He took a dinner suit, a tweed suit, pyjamas, dressing-gown, and toilet things.’

‘Any aspirin?’

‘No.’

‘I fancy I found his bottle in one of Miss Seacliff’s pockets. Come on. Let’s get on with it.’

They got on with it. Presently Bailey said: ‘Here’s one from Garcia.’

‘Let me see, will you?’