The ink was black.
Hurst sighed deeply.
'I'm glad,' he said.
'Who was it you saw?' asked Dalziel.
'Why? Is that necessary,' he asked, turning to Noolan.
'You'd have named him if he seemed guilty. It seems odd not to do so when he is innocent. Eh, Willie?' 'It was Arthur Evans that Peter saw. We heard he was down at the station this morning. Peter wondered
…' '… if we in our own bumbling way had caught up with him? No. Well, thank you both very much indeed for your time.' 'Not at all,' said Noolan. Tm sorry yours has been wasted.'
Hurst left without a word.
'Andy,' said Noolan. 'Don't make such a big noise round the Club, eh? You put me in an embarrassing position.'
'I shan be so quiet you'll never notice me. In fact, with your permission, I'll start now and stop here for a while. All the best fictional detectives do it. Have long thinks, I mean.' 'Be our guest,' said Noolan and went back into the social room leaving the large figure, head wreathed in cigarette smoke, seated at the top of the big committeesized table. He was still there two hours later when the whistle went for no-side. 'A curious game,' said Antony as they drove away from the ground. 'Especially when seen through a glass, distantly.' They hadn't cared to join the small crowd of spectators in the old stand, but had remained in the car parked about twenty-five yards behind one of the goals. 'A poor game,' replied Connon, 'seen from no matter what distance.' 'Why?' asked Antony, with a polite interest which ten minutes later had turned into the real thing. Whatever else you know, Jenny's father, he thought, you certainly know your rugby. At least I think that if I knew my rugby, I would be in a good position to acknowledge that you know yours. But he knew enough about the game to recognize the scope and justice of Connon's analysis. 'Now I feel I could watch the game again,' he said when Connon finished. 'Nothing is repeatable,' said the older man. 'Not even the moments that we relive a thousand times.' Connon fell silent and Antony, great talker though he was, knew when conversation was not being invited. The rest of the drive home passed in almost complete silence. But I like him, thought Antony as they got out of the car. He might do for me very well. I could not bear a dull father-in-law. And Jenny, now Jenny, there's the find of: the century. He went towards the front door with pleasurable anticipation. But there was no reply to his enthusiastic bellringing and Connon, coming from closing the garage, hadl to get his key out to open the door.
The house was quiet and felt empty.
'Jenny! Jenny!' called Connon.
There was no reply.
'She can't have gone far,' said Connon. 'She'll be back in a minute I expect. Probably gone round the corner to the shops.'
Probably, thought Antony, but he didn't feel happy.
He went upstairs to change out of the heavy boots he had (unnecessarily) decided were good rugby-watching gear. As he passed Jenny's bedroom door, he saw it was ajar. He pushed it gently open and looked in. The room was quite empty. He looked at the furnishings, the pictures, the bed with its rich crimson bedspread. Seated on top of it was a fluffy white dog, its red tongue grotesquely hanging out, its head lolling to the side. It was a nightgown case and his eyes lit up as he saw it. Quickly he moved into his own room, grabbed his pyjama top and returned. His intention was simple, to substitute this for whatever garment he found in the dog. But as he went across the room to the bed, something on the dressing-table caught his eye. It was a large sheet of paper with writing all over it. Antony was a man with considerable respect for individual privacy. Looking at other people's letters was not something that attracted him. But something about the sheet of paper, lying with its contents reflected unreadably in the mirror, drew him towards it.
He picked it up.
'Dear Christ,' he said.
He read it again.
'Dear mother of God!' he said.
His pyjama-top dropped from his hand.
'Antony? Anything wrong?'
Connon stood in the door.
'I found this. On her dressing-table.'
He reached out the letter. Connon read it with one sweep of the eyes. Then without a word he turned and'ran downstairs. Antony walking out of the room to the landing heard him dialling the telephone.
Three numbers only.
'Give me the police,' he said. 'Quick.'
'As obscene letters go,' said Dalziel, 'I've seen worse.'
'Is that supposed to be some consolation?' asked Connon. 'It's pretty graphic I should have thought,' remarked Antony, trying to hide his tremendous concern under a calm exterior. 'Oh yes. It's graphic. It's that all right. Crudely so. But it's not perverted. This is all good straightforward stuff.' 'For God's sake, Dalziel!' exploded Connon. 'Can we cut the expert critical review and get on with the job of finding out where Jenny is!'
Dalziel made squelchy soothing noises in his throat.
Take it easy,' he said. 'We have her description out. Every policeman in town's on the look out for her. I'm sure she'll have come to no harm.' 'Thanks,' said Connon. 'You realize there was no envelope with this thing. And there's only one post on Saturday and this had arrived well before I left?' 'Yes, sir. We realize that. So now you're imagining that he, whoever he is, popped this through the letterbox, waited till she had had time to read it, then rang the bell and invited her to take a stroll with him. Now is that likely?' 'Only if,' said Connon slowly, 'only if it was someone she knew well.' The same thought had crossed Dalziel's mind much earlier, but he still found it hard to believe. In his experience those who wrote letters like this were unlikely to follow them up, at least so rapidly. But there was something disturbing about the letter. Not just in its contents. He had been speaking nothing less than the truth when he put it well down the list of those he had seen.
No, there was something else.
The door of the lounge opened, and Pascoe came in. They all looked at him, Dalziel interrogatively, Antony hopefully, Connon fearfully. A single shake of the head did for them all. He went across the room to Dalziel.
'Nothing yet, sir. We've got everything on it we can.'
He was plainly as concerned as anyone else there, really concerned, not just professionally.
Antony found himself quite liking Laurel after all.
He went up to the two detectives and coughed delicately. 'Forgive me for my effrontery,' he said. 'But my father always taught me never to be afraid of pointing out the obvious. I'm sure you have noticed the implication of the letter, that the writer has in fact observed Jenny undressing for bed? I just wondered if you also knew, as I'm sure you do, that her bedroom's at the rear of the house?'
'So?' said Dalziel.
'Well, as I know from personal experience it's almost impossible to get to the rear of this house from the front when the door at the end of the passageway between the garage and the house wall is locked. There is a very stout trellis on the other side of the house, with an equally well-barred door in it.'