Unable to find her way out of this sentence, Mrs. Baker took a deep breath and began again.

“And that, I hoped, would be the end of any nasty talk. But now George, down at the garage, him what Beatrice is going with, he’s got one of them. Saying awful things about our Beatrice, and how she’s going on with Fred Ledbetter’s Tom—and I can assure you, sir, the girl has been no more than civil to him and passing the time of day so to speak.”

My head was now reeling under this new complication of Mr. Ledbetter’s Tom.

“Let me get this straight,” I said. “Beatrice’s—er—young man has had an anonymous letter making accusations about her and another young man?”

“That’s right, sir, and not nicely put at all—horrible words used, and it drove young George mad with rage, it did, and he came round and told Beatrice he wasn’t going to put up with that sort of thing from her, and he wasn’t going to have her go behind his back with other chaps—and she says it’s all a lie—and he says no smoke without fire, he says, and rushes off being hot-like in his temper, and Beatrice she took on ever so, poor girl, and I said I’ll put my hat on and come straight up to you, sir.”

Mrs. Baker paused and looked at me expectantly, like a dog waiting for reward after doing a particularly clever trick.

“But why come to me?” I demanded.

“I understood, sir, that you’d had one of these nasty letters yourself, and I thought, sir, that being a London gentleman, you’d know what to do about them.”

“If I were you,” I said, “I should go to the police. This sort of thing ought to be stopped.”

Mrs. Baker looked deeply shocked.

“Oh, no, sir. I couldn’t go to the police.”

“Why not?”

“I’ve never been mixed up with the police, sir. None of us ever have.”

“Probably not. But the police are the only people who can deal with this sort of thing. It’s their business.”

“Go to Bert Rundle?”

Bert Rundle was the constable, I knew.

“There’s a sergeant, or an inspector, surely, at the police station.”

“Me, go into the police station?”

Mrs. Baker’s voice expressed reproach and incredulity. I began to feel annoyed.

“That’s the only advice I can give you.”

Mrs. Baker was silent, obviously quite unconvinced. She said wistfully and earnestly:

“These letters ought to be stopped, sir, they did ought to be stopped. There’ll be mischief done sooner or later.”

“It seems to me there is mischief done now,” I said.

“I meant violence, sir. These young fellows, they get violent in their feelings—and so do the older ones.”

I asked:

“Are a good many of these letters going about?”

Mrs. Baker nodded.

“It’s getting worse and worse, sir. Mr. and Mrs. Beadle at the Blue Boar—very happy they’ve always been—and now these letters comes and it sets him thinking things—things that aren’t so, sir.”