Bodies from the Library 3

He picked it up and once more began reading.

A light went on in a bedroom at about ten o’clock and we brought a ladder from the garden and placed it near the open window when the lights went out. We had to act with enormous care but hearing was perfect. There were the following scraps of conversation.

(1) ‘Are you sure Phipps can be trusted?’

‘Yes,’ the woman said, ‘I’ll square it with him on Sunday morning again. I’ll have to be there in any case when he’—name not identified—‘rings. He’ll be sure to ring about noon.’

(2) ‘Darling, we’ll have to be most careful from now on. You really mustn’t go making faces at me behind his back.’ He is apparently the unidentified name of 1.

‘It’s all rather funny in a way,’ Claire said. ‘He’s not a bad old stick, really. I don’t think we’ll be running any risk.’

Something had already stood still with Lutley Prentisse. He read the rest of those sheets and as if his eyes no longer saw any words. When he laid the last sheet down he stood for a moment, hand gripping the table and his face a queer grey.

At first his movements seemed rational. He took the tube to Hampstead and made his way to his house and spoke rationally enough to the staff. Mrs Prentisse had gone out for a moment, he was told, but should be back practically at once. He went out himself and at a music shop bought a gut ’cello string. When he came back, Mrs Prentisse was there.

Five minutes later Lunt brought in tea. He found Mrs Prentisse lying dead on the carpet and Prentisse sitting writing at that Queen Anne bureau. Lunt, white-faced and aghast, could get no answer from him. So he ran out to the road and got a message to the police. When they came it was still as if Prentisse did not hear. He let them take him by the arm and lead him away. The sergeant had a look at that paper on which he had been writing.

‘Heavenly days, have a look at this, Inspector! What do you suppose it means?’

The inspector had a look. It didn’t mean anything to him either. It was just a phrase, written over and over again.

‘To the Editor of The Times , Dear Sir.’

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