‘What a hope!’ said Fox.

‘As you indicate, the chances are thin.’

‘If they couldn’t find this chap O’Brien’s letter on the premises then how can we expect to trace it now, seventeen years later?’

‘Well urged, Brer Fox, well urged. But I fancy we know something now that they didn’t know then.’

‘Oh, well,’ conceded Fox. ‘Maybe. But all the same I wouldn’t give you a tuppenny damn for our chances and that’s flat.’

‘I’m a little more sanguine than that. Well, if we fail here we’ll have to peg away somewhere else.’

‘There’s the missing cloak and hat.’

‘Yes. Any report come in this morning from the postal people?’

‘No. I’ve followed your suggestion and asked them to try to check yesterday’s overseas parcels post. Our chaps have gone into the rubbish-bin game and there’s nothing there. The Chelsea and Belgrave bins were emptied this morning and there’s no cloaks or hats in any of them. Of course something may come in from farther afield.’

‘I don’t fancy the rubbish-bins, Fox. Too risky. For some reason he wanted those things to be lost completely. Hair oil, perhaps. Yes, it might be hair oil. I’m afraid, you know, that we shall have to ask all these people if we may search their houses.’

‘Carrados is sure to object, sir, and you don’t want to have to get search warrants yet, do you?’

‘I think we can scare him by saying that Dimitri, Withers, Davidson, Halcut-Hackett and Lady Potter are all going to be asked to allow a search of their houses. He’ll look a bit silly if he refuses on top of that.’

‘Do you think the cloak and hat may still be hidden away in—well, in the guilty party’s house?’

‘No, blast it. I think he got rid of them yesterday before we had covered the first phase of investigation.’

‘By post?’

‘Well, can you think of a better method? In London? We’ve decided the river’s barred because of the tide. We’ve advertised the damn thing well enough—they haven’t been shoved down anyone’s area. We’ve searched all the way along the Embankment. The men are still at it but I don’t think they’ll find them. The murderer wouldn’t have time to do anything very elaborate in the way of hiding them and anyway, if we’re right, it’s off his beat.’

‘Where would he send them?’ ruminated Fox.

‘Put yourself in his place. What address would you put on an incriminating parcel?’

‘Care of Private Hoo Flung Dung, forty-second battalion, Chop Suey, Mah Jongg, Manchuria, to wait till called for,’ suggested Fox irritably.

‘Something like that,’ said Alleyn. ‘Something very like that, Brer Fox.’

They drove in silence for the rest of the way to Barbicon-Bramley.

Miss Harris’s natal village proved to be small and rather self-consciously picturesque. There was a preponderance of ye olde-ness about the few shops and a good deal of pseudo-Tudor half-timbering on the outlying houses. They stopped at the post office and Alleyn asked to be directed to the Reverend Mr Walter Harris’s house.