‘In due course, we came, as you will hear, to a point in the investigation where we could draw only one conclusion. The “alibis”, to call them so, for the earlier case would be established in that suspects of given names would be proved to be in given places at given times. The only conclusion, as I hope you will see as the case develops, could be that one of these suspects was operating under what might be called the double identity lay. This is, in fact, what Foljambe was doing. He had adopted, for purposes of the cruise, the identity of another and a living person whom he knew to be out of England. This meant that in the event of an inquiry the police would check this person’s background, see that it was impeccable, look up his address, find that he was away, make further inquiries and discover he could not possibly be fitted into the Foljambe file. And so turn elsewhere for a culprit. It is an extremely risky but not unusual gimmick and is only effective for a short time but the Jampot is a tip-and-run expert and had decided to give it a go. Bear this in mind as we go on.

‘We come now to the point when the investigation went grievously, indeed tragically, wrong and it went wrong because a police officer neglected a fundamental rule. Police officers, like the rest of mankind, are vulnerable creatures and like the rest of mankind they sometimes slip up. In this case a simple, basic rule of procedure was ignored. The chap who ignored it was a middle-aged provincial PC, not all that familiar with the type of job in hand and not as alert as he needed to be. He had his dim moment and the result was a death that could have been avoided. I don’t mind telling you it still, as people say, haunts me. There’s one such case at least in the lives of most investigating officers and sooner or later every man jack of you is liable to encounter it. Ours is a job, let’s face it, for which one has to grow an extra skin. In some of us, under constant irritation this becomes a rhinoceros hide. We are not a starry-eyed lot. But at the risk of getting right off the track—a most undesirable proceeding—I would like to say this. You won’t be any the worse at your job if you can keep your humanity. If you lose it altogether you’ll be, in my opinion, better out of the Force because with it you’ll have lost your sense of values and that’s a dire thing to befall any policeman.

‘Sorry. I’ll push on. Following the signal about the motorbike pair, Mr Fox and I returned in the Yard car to Tollardwark. But first of all I talked to the Skipper—’