‘But not my reason for soliciting your help. I must tell you that I have written to Major Barrimore who is the incumbent of the inn, and informed him of my decision. I have announced my intention of visiting the Island to see that this decision is carried out. And, since she will no doubt wish to provide for herself, I have also written to the proprietress of the shop, a Miss Elspeth Cost. I have given her three months’ notice, unless she chooses to maintain the place as a normal establishment and refrain from exploiting the spring or mounting a preposterous anniversary festival which, I am informed, she has put in hand and which has been widely advertised in the Press.’

‘Major Barrimore and Miss Cost must have been startled by your letters.’

‘So much so, perhaps, that they have lost the power of communication. I wrote a week ago. There has been no formal acknowledgment.’

She said this with such a meaning air that he felt he was expected to take it up. ‘Has there been an informal one? ‘he ventured.

‘Judge for yourself,’ said Miss Emily, crisply.

She went to her desk, and returned with several sheets of paper which she handed to him.

Alleyn glanced at the first, paused, and then laid them all in a row on an occasional table. There were five. ‘Hell!’ he thought, ‘this means a go with Miss Emily.’ They were in the familiar form of newsprint pasted on ruled paper which had been wrenched from an exercise book. The first presented an account of several cures effected by the springs and was headed with unintentional ambiguity, ‘Pixie Falls Again.’ It was, he recognized, from the London Sun. Underneath the cutting was an irregularly assembled sentence of separated words, all in newsprint.

‘Do not Attempt THREAT to close you are WARNED.’ The second read, simply: ‘DANGER keep OUT,’ the third, ‘Desecration will be prevented all costs,’ the fourth: ‘Residents are prepared interference will prove FATAL,’ and the last, in one strip, ‘DEATH OF ELDERLY WOMAN’ with a piecemeal addendum ‘this could be you.’

‘Well,’ Alleyn said, ‘that’s a pretty collection, I must say. When did they come?’

‘One by one, over the last five days. The first must have been posted immediately after the arrival of my letter.’

‘Have you kept the envelopes?’

‘Yes. The postmark is Portcarrow.’

‘May I see them?’

She produced them: five cheap envelopes. The address had been built up from newsprint.

‘Will you let me keep these? And the letters?’

‘Certainly.’

‘Any idea who sent them?’ he asked.

‘None.’

‘Who has your address?’

‘The landlord. Major Barrimore.’

‘It’s an easy one to assemble from any paper. Thirty-seven Forecast Street. Wait a moment though. This one wasn’t built up piece-meal. It’s all in one. I don’t recognize the type.’

‘Possibly a local paper. At the time of my inheritance.’

‘Yes. Almost certainly.’