‘Now then,’ said Alleyn.

‘The thing that beats me,’ said Fox, wiping his short moustache with his handkerchief, ‘is little Violet. We knew she was a niece of this old gentleman’s but, by gum, we didn’t know she was staying there at the time, now, did we?’

‘No, Brer Fox, we didn’t.’

‘I suppose she may not know it herself,’ continued Fox. ‘I mean to say, Miss Violet Harris may not realize that Lady Carrados was this Mrs O’Brien whose husband was brought into her uncle’s vicarage when she was a kid of fifteen.’

‘Quite possible. I hope she remembers the bicycle ride. We’ll have to jog her memory, I dare say.’

‘Yes. Now I reckon, on what we’ve heard, that it was Carrados who took that letter from little Violet. Carrados, sitting in the car outside the hospital, while the poor chap who’d got the letter from Australia was dying inside. And then, later on, when there’s all the fuss about a missing letter, what does he do?’

Alleyn knew this question was purely rhetorical and didn’t interrupt.

‘He tells the widow,’ said Fox; ‘he tells the widow that he’s made every inquiry and there isn’t a letter to be found.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Alleyn. ‘No doubt he tells her that.’

‘Right. Now, why does he do that? I reckon it’s because Sir Herbert Carrados is what you might call a bit of a moral coward with a kind of mental twist. What these psycho-johnnies call a repression or some such thing. As I see it he didn’t want to admit to having seen the letter because he’d actually read it. This Australian bloke knew Captain O’Brien had married a loony and wrote to tell him he was now a widower. If what Lady Carrados told you was correct and he’d fancied her for a long time, that letter must have shaken him up a bit. Now perhaps he says to himself, being a proud, snobbish sort of chap and yet having set his heart on her, that he’ll let sleeping dogs lie.’

‘Cut the whole thing dead? Yes. That’s sound enough. It’s in character.’

‘That’s what I mean,’ said Fox in a gratified voice. ‘But all the same he doesn’t destroy the letter. Or does he?’

‘That,’ said Alleyn, ‘is exactly what we’ve got to find out.’

‘Well, sir, we’ve got our suspicions, haven’t we?’

‘Yes. Before this evening, Fox, I want to make certainties of our suspicions.’

‘By gum, Mr Alleyn, if we can do that we’ll have made a tidy job of this case. Don’t count your chickens, as well I know, but if we can get an arrest within two days after the crime, in a complicated case like this, we’re not doing too badly, now are we?’

‘I suppose not, you old warrior, I suppose not.’ Alleyn gave a short sigh. ‘I wish—’ he said. ‘Oh God, Fox, I do wish he hadn’t died. No good maundering. I also wish very much that we’d been able to find some trace of something, just something in the taxi. But not a thing.’