Seconds later the inner door opened and a middle-aged lady came in, carrying her notebook.

‘You just caught me,’ she said.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘It’s all right. I’m in no hurry.’

‘Sit down. I want to test your memory, Mrs Abrams.’

She sat down.

‘When,’ he asked, ‘did you last see the bottom of my in-tray?’

‘Yesterday morning, Mr Morris. Ten-fifteen. Teatime. I checked through the contents and added the morning’s mail.’

‘You saw the bottom?’

‘Certainly. I took everything out. There was a brochure from the wine people. I thought you might like to see it.’

‘Quite. And nothing else?’

‘Nothing.’ She waited for a moment and then said incredulously: ‘There’s nothing lost?’

‘No. There’s something found. A typed message. It’s on our follow-up paper and it’s typed on that machine over there. No envelope.’

‘Oh,’ she said.

‘Yes. Where was I? While you were in here?’

‘On the phone. Security people. First night arrangements.’

‘Ah yes. Mrs Abrams, was this room unoccupied at any time, and unlocked, between then and now? I lunched at my club.’

‘It was locked. You locked it.’

‘Before that?’

‘Er – I think you went out for a few minutes. At eleven.’

‘I did?’

‘The toilet,’ she said modestly. ‘I heard the door open and close.’

‘Oh yes. And later?’

‘Let me think. No, apart from that it was never unoccupied and unlocked. Wait!’

‘Yes, Mrs Abrams.’

‘I had put a sheet of our follow-up paper in the little machine here in case you should require a memo.’

‘Yes?’

‘You did not. It is not there now. How peculiar.’

‘Yes, very.’ He thought things over for a moment and then said: ‘Your memory, Mrs Abrams, is exceptional. Do I understand that the only time it could have been done was when I left the room for – for at least five minutes? Would you not have heard the typewriter?’

‘I was using my own machine in my own room, Mr Morris. No.’

‘And the time?’

‘I heard Big Ben.’

‘Thank you. Thank you very much.’ He hesitated. He contemplated Mrs Abrams doubtfully. ‘I’m very much obliged. I – thank you, Mrs Abrams.’

‘Thank you, Mr Morris.’

She closed the door behind her. I wonder, she thought, why he doesn’t tell me what was in the message.

On the other side of the door he thought: I would have liked to tell her but – no. The fewer the better.

He sat before his desk and thought carefully and calmly about this disruptive event. He was unaware of the previous occurrences: Peregrine’s accident; the head in the King’s room; the head in the meat-dish; the rat in Rangi’s bag. They were not in his department. So that he had nothing to relate the message to. A murderer’s son in the cast! he thought. Preposterous! What murderer? What son?