Chapter Seven

There was a message in Philip Holt’s pigeon-hole at the reception desk when they got back to their hotel in Eastbourne. It was a simple request to ring a local number as soon as possible.

‘No name?’ Holt asked.

‘Apparently not, sir.’

Holt frowned, feeling rather irritable after a bumpy return journey on the top of a double-decker bus. ‘Well, was it a lady or a gentleman?’

‘I’m afraid I don’t know, sir. I’ve only just come on duty. Would you like to telephone from the desk here? I can get the number for you straightaway.’

Holt agreed and a few moments later the clerk nodded to him to pick up the receiver.

‘Hello,’ said a female voice.

‘This is Philip Holt speaking.’

‘Oh, Mr Holt, how very kind of you to ring. I tried to get you earlier but it seems you were out.’

‘Your voice is charming but it would help if I knew your name.’

There came an infectious chuckle from the other end of the line. ‘How stupid of me! This is Antoinette Sheen.’

‘Indeed?’

‘I heard you were in these parts. I think we ought to meet.’

Holt shared her opinion but was curious to know what her motives might be. ‘May I ask why you think we ought to meet, Miss Sheen?’

‘Certainly, you may,’ the husky voice answered pleasantly. ‘I have two very good reasons. Firstly, I’ve something to give you – something in connection with Vance Scranton. And secondly, as I imagine you’ve been told a pack of lies about me and my relationship with the boy, I think it’s only fair that I should be given a chance to defend myself.’

‘I see. That sounds reasonable enough. Where can we meet?’

‘Could you possibly come out to my bungalow? I’m on a painting jag and if I have to leave it means cleaning myself up and all that bore.’

‘Very well. What’s the address?’

‘I live at East Dean. The bungalow is painted a dreadful shade of salmon pink – it stands alone in the middle of a field …’ She gave an ironic laugh and added, ‘Ideal for amateur burglaries.’

‘What makes you say that? Are you a victim?’

‘You could put it like that. Someone broke into my bedroom the other day when I was out, but nothing was stolen. Now, do you think you can find the way? It’s just before the road branches off for Birling Gap. You have a car, I take it?’

‘I had a car, but now I shall have to hire one. My own got buckled up this morning. Oddly enough, Miss Sheen, the accident took place near Birling Gap, not far from East Dean.’

‘Really? How strange. I haven’t heard anything about it. But then, I’ve only just got back from my daily ride.’

‘Your daily ride, did you say?’ Holt said quickly. ‘Do you mean – er – horses?’

She chuckled delightedly. ‘Of course, Mr Holt. What did you think I meant – bicycles?’

Over lunch at the hotel Holt told Ruth about the invitation.

‘She said she’d heard I was down here,’ he added. ‘News certainly travels fast.’

‘It always does in small communities,’ Ruth reminded him. ‘We’ve been here nearly twenty-four hours, remember – plenty of time for our whereabouts to have been circulated to the College and East Dean and half-way round the Sussex coast by now.’

‘It probably just confirms what you said about Antoinette Sheen being at the College this morning,’ Holt conceded.

‘So now we’re going to meet the gorgeous Antoinette! What time do we leave?’

‘Not we, my dear. The invitation was only for one.’ He held up his hand to cut off her protests.

‘But she’ll eat you alive!’ Ruth exclaimed.

‘I’m remarkably indigestible,’ he said happily. ‘Ask my ex-wife. Besides, it would look ridiculous if I had to lug you along as a kind of chaperone or nanny!’

Ruth looked miserable. ‘How do you suggest I spend my time this afternoon while you’re being seduced by this … this lethal charmer?’

‘Ring up Inspector Hyde and tell him what happened to the Mustang’s brakes. Give him an account of our visit to the College and ask him to check up on Professor Dalesford’s background. And you can ask him when the devil he’s going to come up with some facts about the Prospero article and the Christopher postcards … and those photographs you so cleverly took of Curly’s pals in the delivery van.’ Holt beamed at her as he rose to his feet.

She retorted with heavy sarcasm, ‘I’m so touched by the last remark. It makes me feel really wanted.’

Holt set off alone for the bungalow, in a hired Cortina. Driving down the exceptionally steep hill which dropped with switchback suddenness into East Dean he was forcibly reminded of the farmhand’s prediction: ‘Yew’d have been killed for sure.’ He had escaped one trap; was he walking wide-eyed into another? It seemed that Miss Sheen’s residence was conveniently close to the spot where he had parked the car that morning. Quite possibly she could have followed them from the College, then saddled her horse and … But, in that case, why admit she had been riding? And what about that glimpse of blonde hair? Antoinette was not a blonde, that much he knew even though he had never met her. A blonde wig? A yellow hat or scarf? Rule out the first two, but a scarf was quite a possibility …

He soon spotted the bungalow, salmon-pink in a blaze of sunshine in the middle of a field (‘ideal for amateur burglaries’ – what an odd remark). He parked the car in a small copse some distance away and completed the journey on foot. He did not actually intend spying on the girl, but on the other hand there seemed no point in announcing his presence too far in advance.

As a result, Antoinette Sheen was too engrossed in her work to notice his approach across the field. The ‘painting jag’ she had spoken of was apparently in full swing; she had her back to him as she stood at an oil-painting propped on an easel. Soft autumnal sunlight flooded in through the open French windows and rimmed her long, tawny hair with golden fire. He noticed she was wearing jodhpurs and a thin yellow shirt with sleeves rolled up. It was tied with a sash in a knot at the back and emphasised the striking slimness of her waist.

Holt’s eyes widened when he saw what she was painting. It was a copy of one of his favourite pictures, Vermeer’s The Kitchen Maid. The painting was almost completed; only the bread and a corner of the table had yet to be tackled. It was clear that the finished result would be a remarkably accurate reproduction of the great Dutchman’s original work.

He was startled when, without turning round, she spoke to him.

‘Do you like it, Mr Holt?’

‘I … I really must apologise,’ he began.

‘Whatever for? Let’s say, my painting was so arresting that it halted you in mid-stride!’ There was an unmistakable lilt of amusement in her voice. She turned to face him. ‘Or were you admiring my figure? I’m told it’s pretty good, even in this Farmer Giles outfit.’

She took down a mirror which was perched on top of the easel and, with no attempt to hide her vanity, pushed and prodded at her hair with the handle of a paintbrush. The yellow shirt was cut alarmingly low and seemed to have been designed without the use of buttons; fold-over lapels which met in the sash at the back were supposed to take care of the proprieties. They did not do a very secure job.

‘Your figure is undoubtedly very attractive,’ Holt said. ‘But to tell the truth it was the canvas that stopped me. Vermeer happens to be a minor passion of mine.’

She gave a peal of laughter. ‘How refreshing to find an honest man. Most men would have settled for easy flattery.’

Holt went closer to the easel and looked carefully at her work. ‘The biggest test still lies ahead of you.’

A worried frown crossed her face. ‘What do you mean, exactly?’

‘The bread on the table. Vermeer painted those loaves three hundred years ago and—’

‘I know what you’re going to say!’ she cut in with genuine enthusiasm. ‘Three centuries ago – yet if you walk into the Rijks Museum today and go straight to Room 225 you feel you can almost snatch the bread off the table and eat it, it looks so crisp and appetising.’

‘Exactly! That’s your challenge! Flunk that, and you may as well take up pop art.’

For some minutes of animated conversation they continued to explore their common interest in art. It was a chance remark of Antoinette’s which brought the ugly present back into the room.

‘I don’t remember having such a good natter about painting since Vance was last here,’ she said.

There was a pregnant silence.

‘Did he paint too?’ Holt asked.

‘No, he couldn’t handle a brush very well, but he was tremendously knowledgeable about art, its techniques, history, and so on. He was very knowledgeable about everything, to tell the truth. His real talent lay in writing: queer, twisted stuff, but I think he had in him the makings of something good. I notice, by the way, that you still speak of him in the past tense, as though you really believe he’s dead.’

‘And I notice that you do, too,’ he said.

‘Touché. You don’t believe this red herring of a newspaper rumour about Vance being alive?’

‘I don’t believe everything I see in print,’ said Holt noncommittally.

‘It’s an absurd story, written by an irresponsible journalist!’ She sounded angry. ‘Why try and give hope to the bereaved parents?’

‘You’re quite certain it was Vance who was killed?’

‘Of course. I identified the body.’

‘Did you look at it for long?’

Antoinette pursed her lips. ‘Hardly. It was a terrible sight.’

Holt said, ‘Mistakes sometimes happen in such cases, you know. Nobody looked for more than a few seconds – Julie Benson fainted, I believe.’

‘She always does, it’s standard routine with her,’ The girl laughed. ‘No wonder Vance grew out of her, she’s so determinedly helpless and still so wet behind the ears.’

‘Forgive me for putting it bluntly, Miss Sheen, but when Vance grew out of Julie, he – grew into you, didn’t he?’

Antoinette’s beautiful eyes sparkled with controlled anger. ‘I rather imagined that’s what they’ve been telling you – how I seduced him, twisted his innocent mind, perverted his golden youth. Jeunesse doré indeed! Is that what you’ve heard?’

‘Something like that.’

‘What a cartload of rubbish! Vance was born with a twisted mind, a mind ten times more cynical and bitter than yours or mine will ever be. He was a little evil old man, right from the womb.’

Holt regarded her intently, allowing her full rein.

‘Oh, his brain was keen enough,’ she went on, ‘but only keen to see the black side of human nature, never the good. Voltaire and the other humanists he laughed at, yet someone like Talleyrand was ideal, with his theory that diplomacy was the art of finding your opponent’s weaknesses and applying the all-powerful pressure of money at the weak spots.’

‘He knew the price of everything and the value of nothing?’

‘Yes, he admired Wilde too. Vance was crazy about money and said everyone could be bought, from a High Court Judge downwards. Heaven knows, Mr Holt, I’m no angel – I like men, I like sex, I like my freedom – but I refused to accept his cynicism. It upset me to see such good material going to rot.’

‘May I ask, were you lovers?’ Holt said.

She hesitated a moment before replying, but she met his level gaze without flinching. ‘You do go in for plain speaking, don’t you?’ she said.

‘The habit is catching,’ Holt replied.

‘Fair enough. Yes, we were lovers, for a while. He was handsome and virile. I liked him physically and he seemed to like me. I thought love might … I know this sounds corny, but I thought it might thaw him out, if you see what I mean.’

‘Yes, I do see. And did it – thaw him out?’

‘No. The idea was naïve and quite useless.’

‘So you ceased to be lovers?’

Antoinette shrugged her shoulders. ‘C’est la vie.’

‘Did he like that – being rejected, I mean?’

‘I’m several steps ahead of you, Mr Holt,’ she said, softening a little and crossing towards him. ‘Yes, I rejected him … but no, we didn’t have a quarrel.’ She smiled. ‘No, I did not present him with a rival … and no, I did not steal out of the piano recital that night and shoot him because he was pestering me … I’ve had all this out before with Inspector Hyde, you know.’ She was standing close to him now, her hands slowly reaching up to his shoulders, her eyes staring up at him, compelling him to believe her. ‘Whatever else you may think about me, Philip – and I’ve admitted I’m no angel – I want you to believe one thing. I didn’t kill Vance Scranton …’

For a moment Holt did not move; his mind warned him that Mata Hari had used the identical technique. But his pounding blood forced him to admit that even if the wool was being pulled over his eyes it was being done in an entrancing fashion. He would think about Mata Hari afterwards …

‘At such close quarters … it’s rather hard not to believe you …’ he said as his arms folded over her superb body.

‘And I want you to continue in that belief, Philip, when we’re no longer at … quite such close quarters,’ she said softly, and raised her lips to his.

After a very long time Antoinette released herself and stepped back. ‘I was quite right!’ she said. ‘When I saw you this morning I said, “There’s one hunk of a man!”’

Most of Holt’s senses were still surging in the land where Antoinette’s splendid attractions had led them, but his mind reacted swiftly enough. ‘I thought you said you knew nothing about my accident?’

‘What accident?’

‘To my car, between here and Birling Gap this morning.’

‘But I don’t know anything about it! I was out riding, I go out riding most mornings. No, I saw you up at the College. In fact, I even passed you and that little popsy of yours on the steps.’

‘But Professor Dalesford told me—’

‘He’s an old booby who’s afraid of his own shadow! He probably said he hadn’t seen me for days. Am I right? He doesn’t like to have our names linked too much in public, and he doesn’t really like me going up to the College at all.’

‘For fear you will pervert the entire youth of Southern England?’

They both laughed.

Then Holt asked, ‘Why do you go up there? You’re not on the staff, are you?’

‘No, but I have permission from the College Secretary to use the library.’ She pointed casually at the bookshelves which ran the length of one wall. ‘I need it, for research on those things.’ She laughed again. ‘Bottom row, far corner – push those canvases out of the way and you’ll soon see who my favourite author is.’

Holt followed her suggestion and examined the shelves. Tumbled in complete disorder, some in paperbacks and some in hard covers, were nine or ten historical novels, all written by Antoinette Sheen. He took out two and glanced at their contents. Deep-bosomed Plantaganet beauties and impossibly muscular French musketeers gleamed from the glossy dust-jackets very much as he had anticipated; but the books bore the imprint of a good publishing house. He was also surprised to see how wide a range of history the novels covered and what excellent reviews some of them had received, to judge by the critics’ quotes which the jackets carried.

‘Don’t embarrass me by looking at them too long,’ she said. ‘They’re just my bread and butter. A girl has to live.’

Holt stood up. An interesting new theory was beginning to form at the back of his mind. As he turned to face Antoinette he found that she was holding out an envelope. ‘What’s this?’ he asked.

‘I mentioned on the phone that I had something to give you – something in connection with Vance’s death. You’ll see now why I can’t believe in this fairy story that he’s still alive. This is a letter from the man who murdered him. I got it yesterday.’

Holt opened the envelope. Inside was a typewritten note, and a small object wrapped in tissue paper. He read the message aloud: ‘Dear Miss Sheen, I feel quite sure that you, more than anyone else, would like to have the enclosed. It belonged to Vance Scranton.’

Carefully he unfolded the tissue paper and held the contents in the palm of his hand.

‘And this did belong to Vance?’ he said at length.

‘Yes, that was his signet ring.’

Back in Eastbourne, Holt turned the Cortina into the hotel drive and found a place to park. In a deeply pensive mood he approached the entrance to the hotel, where a young man with flaxen hair blocked his way.

‘Monsieur Holt?’ asked the stranger, with a slight foreign accent.

‘Yes, that’s right.’

‘Please forgive me for stopping you like this. The hotel concierge pointed you out to me. My name is Henri Legere. I am a student at Deanfriston College. Please tell me,’ he went on, producing a copy of the newspaper which contained Abe Jenkins’ article, ‘is it true that Vance may be alive?’

‘I wish I could answer that question, Monsieur Legere. The writer of that article seems to know more than I do.’

The young French student was not really listening, he was anxious to continue with his own story. ‘I must tell you – I am not absolutely certain – but I think I saw Vance myself this morning.’

‘Where was this?’

‘Here in Eastbourne.’

‘Did he see you?’

‘No, I was up in my room. I did not go to the College today.’

‘Oh, you have lodgings in the town, then?’

‘Lodgings?… Ah, oui, ma chambre! Yes, I share rooms with another student called Graham Brown. We have a window that looks out onto the back of a restaurant – The Golden Peacock, it is called. The door to the kitchens is in a narrow alley which is nearly always dark. That is why I am not sure that it is Vance I see. But it looked much like him. Please tell me, Monsieur Holt: is it possible that he still lives?’

‘I’m afraid I can’t answer that one. Does this friend of yours – Graham Brown – also think he saw Vance?’

‘Ah no … Graham is in Scotland, visiting his parents.’

‘I see. So we only have your word for it. Well, keep your eyes skinned, Monsieur Legere!’

‘Comment?’

‘Keep a sharp look-out and communicate immediately with me or with the police if you think you see him again.’

‘Very well, Monsieur Holt. Au revoir.’

The fair-haired student bowed, walked quickly down the drive, and pedalled away on an old bicycle which had been propped at the kerbside.

Holt was stopped by the reception clerk when he entered the hotel. Once satisfied that Holt had encountered the young man with the foreign accent who had just been asking for him, the clerk passed on one other message. Would Mr Holt please contact Miss Sanders as soon as he got in?

Holt smiled to himself. She wants to see how much is left of me after being ‘eaten alive’ by Antoinette Sheen, he thought. With a slight twinge of pique at Ruth’s shrewd prediction of events he hurried to his room to wash faint traces of lipstick from his face and brush the collar of his jacket before striding down the corridor and tapping on Ruth’s door.

He scowled when a male voice called out, inviting him to enter.

‘Don’t glare at me like that, Holt,’ said Inspector Hyde jovially when Holt turned the door handle and looked in. ‘Ruth’s room is far more comfortable than mine.’

Holt’s scowl dissolved into a grin and he stepped inside, shutting the door firmly behind him.

‘I got down here soon after lunch,’ the Inspector explained. ‘There’s nothing new on the Curly murder, I’m afraid. Ruth’s been filling me in on your visit to the College and the brake-cutting at Birling Gap. I’m very glad to see you both alive.’

Holt nodded grimly. ‘It was a neat job, done by an expert. Both the hydraulic tubes had been cut – if only one had been done we’d still have been able to brake.’

Ruth was scrutinising him. ‘What does Miss Sheen have to say about the accident?’

‘She claims to know nothing about it.’

‘Even though she lives right near by?’

‘Well, to be fair, it wasn’t a very noisy accident, was it?’

‘I see,’ Ruth said dryly. ‘And I suppose she also claims to know nothing whatsoever about what happened in Vance Scranton’s study last week?’

Holt took out a cigarette, caught Ruth’s eye again, and did not light it. ‘I haven’t quite weighed her up yet. She’s convinced that it was Vance who was killed, but she swears black and blue she had no part in it.’

It was obvious from Ruth’s expression that she had already weighed up Miss Sheen and was forming a pretty accurate reconstruction of the recent scene at the bungalow. She managed to convey her disapproval without saying anything more cutting than, ‘And did the curvaceous Antoinette manage to convince you of that, Philip?’

‘Spare the chap’s blushes!’ Hyde intervened. ‘Your boss may be of the male sex, but he’s nobody’s fool. Tell us what you found out, dear chap.’

‘Before I do that, I must tell you about something odd that happened in the hotel drive just now.’

The Inspector and Ruth craned forward as he recounted his meeting with Henri Legere.

‘That makes three people who claim they’ve seen him,’ Hyde said. ‘The boy’s mother, Mr Wade the undertaker, and now a College friend. And yet Antoinette, you say, is quite sure he’s dead. I wonder why she’s so sure?’

‘I can think of a very good reason,’ suggested Ruth with meaning.

Ignoring her, the Inspector said, ‘Well, now, Holt, you were going to give us an account of your visit and your impressions of the lady.’

Holt nodded and now lit his cigarette in silence. Then he began ticking off each item on his fingers. ‘My impressions are as follows: One: she’s stunning to look at. Two: she’s astoundingly frank. Three: she’s a first-class painter and knows a lot about art. Four: she’s got an excellent brain; I’d almost guess an academically-trained brain. She can quote Talleyrand and Voltaire without seeming pompous. And another thing – those books she writes. I haven’t read any of them, but I admit I had some pre-conceived notions about her. A quick perusal of her bookshelf rather changed all that.’

‘Heavens above!’ Ruth interrupted, her face flushed. ‘She really has twirled you around her little finger, hasn’t she?’

Hyde attempted to be constructive. ‘So you think she’s in the clear so far as the murder is concerned, and you don’t think she had anything to do with the brake-fixing?’

‘She may quite well have done both – especially the latter,’ Holt said unexpectedly. He described the clothes Antoinette had been wearing.

‘Well,’ Ruth burst out, ‘what more evidence do you want!’

‘All right!’ he snapped. ‘So we saw someone in jodhpurs and a flash of yellow! But if she did it, why didn’t she bother to change before I called on her?’

‘Bluff! Pure bluff!’ said Ruth heatedly.

‘Wait a moment,’ the Inspector interrupted diplomatically. ‘You said she might have an academically-trained mind, Holt. Was that pure guesswork, or did you know that she has two University degrees?’

Holt sat up straight. ‘In History and Economics, by any chance?’

‘Exactly. Then you did know?’

‘No, but I’ve been putting two and two together. I’ll even go so far as to tell you who Prospero is.’

‘Be careful, you’re likely to slip up here,’ Hyde warned him good-naturedly.

‘No, I’m not! It all fits. Antoinette is hot stuff on history – she must be to write a pile of books like that and get them published by a decent publishing house. But it’s not her only line of country. She writes those spicy historical romances to pay her grocery bills, but she’s got the brains and knowledge to do more, in a field closely associated with history: namely, politics and economics!’

‘Where does all this get us, then?’ asked Ruth.

‘Simply this: know thine enemy. Antoinette Sheen rates high on the list of suspects for murder. I’d been led to expect a feather-brained sex-bomb, but the truth is we’re dealing with a cool, astute, and highly intelligent woman.’

‘Who writes political articles for a highbrow weekly under the pen-name of Prospero?’ Hyde suggested.

‘No, I don’t imagine it’s quite like that. Naturally, I’m only guessing, but I shouldn’t be surprised to learn that Prospero is Professor Dalesford’s pseudonym.’

‘Dalesford?’

‘Yes. You see, nobody is going to pay serious attention to articles like that if it’s known they’re being written by a woman novelist, the author of lurid romances. So Dalesford – who strikes me as a vain fool – takes the glory, while Antoinette does the donkey-work. I don’t know who collects the cash – they probably share it between them.’

Hyde stood up to stretch his legs and started to fill his pipe. ‘Now that’s inspired guesswork, Holt, because as it happens you’ve hit the nail on the head! Certain information we’ve been able to obtain confirms everything you’ve said. Dalesford is Prospero. And I have further news: the Yard’s calligraphy experts say it’s ninety per cent certain that the person who wrote that poison-pen note in green ink in the New Feature was Julie Benson.’

Holt nodded. ‘That fits. Who but his own secretary would know that the Professor doesn’t actually write the stuff himself? Julie wants to point the finger of suspicion at Antoinette, whom she hates like poison for having taken Vance from her …’

Ruth’s tone of voice had a slight touch of frost about it when she filled the pause that followed, but she spoke seriously and gained attention. ‘It could just be that Julie does know something, don’t you think? Maybe she’s got a few facts tucked up her sleeve which she’s not yet told. Isn’t it just possible that it’s Julie Benson who’s speaking the truth?’

The Inspector cleared his throat and exchanged a guilty look with Holt. ‘Ruth’s right, as usual. It’s perfectly possible,’ he acknowledged. ‘I shall have to tackle Miss Benson again. For one thing, she’s got to answer for sending anonymous accusations through the post.’

‘I’m afraid you’re going to have to have Antoinette on the carpet, too, Inspector,’ Holt said, taking the envelope out of his pocket. ‘She claims this letter was sent to her yesterday, with Vance Scranton’s signet ring inside it. The ring is probably genuine – Julie or Vance’s parents can confirm that – but I have my doubts about the typewritten letter and the way she says it came to her.’

Hyde took the ring eagerly and examined it. ‘Now we may be getting somewhere at last! Did you look at it carefully, Holt?’

‘No, I’ve had no time.’

Hyde handed it back. ‘Well, what do you make of the insignia on it?’ Holt turned it this way and that, viewing it from every angle. ‘It’s pretty simple, isn’t it? Just Vance Scranton’s initials, with the V planted over the S.’

‘Right! I can see that now. But on the Christopher postcard … Here, take a look for yourself.’ He took from his wallet a photostat copy of the card which had been sent to Vance. ‘This is what our cypher department have been able to produce.’

Ruth’s face lit up as she and Holt bent over the photostat. The message that had once clearly read ‘HAVING A WONDERFUL TIME. REGARDS FROM CHRISTOPHER’ was now distorted by a series of capital letters appearing between the innocent words, and the Vance Scranton symbol was self-evident. The complete message read:

‘Was this a code message written in special ink?’ Ruth asked, warmth and excitement flooding back into her voice.

Hyde nodded. ‘We had the cards treated. This code came to light on the first card, the one that was sent directly to Vance just before he died. But there was no concealed message on the second card.’

‘The one Jimmy Wade produced?’

‘Yes. One might be forgiven for wondering if the second is a fake.’

‘Black mark for Jimmy the Undertaker,’ said Ruth. ‘Doesn’t the V and the S at the beginning of each group look like a dollar sign?’

‘That’s exactly what misled me,’ Hyde agreed. ‘But now that we have the ring it’s perfectly clear what the V crossed by an S means. And the boy’s involvement in this strange business appears to be proven beyond doubt.’

‘But what does the code mean?’ Ruth wanted to know.

‘Our experts haven’t come up with the answer to that yet. The trouble is, these three and four-letter blocks are so simple they could mean any one of a thousand things. Give our eggheads a really knotty description of the latest nuclear rocket written in cyrillic script by a foreign spy and they’ll have the answer for you inside half an hour.’

Ruth’s enthusiasm was so obviously dashed by Hyde’s words that he felt compelled to add a spot of encouragement. ‘In one direction we’ve taken a step forward, though. Those snapshots you got from the back of Curly’s mini-bus look like amounting to something.’

‘I thought they were too blurred,’ she said.

‘Not a bit of it. We had them enlarged to a considerable size and sent some copies to Interpol. The two men in the van were burnt to cinders, as you know, so your photographs were all we had to identify them by. Interpol came back with a theory – which hasn’t yet been confirmed, mind – that the two men were petty French criminals.’

‘French?’ she said with surprise.

‘Yes. Petty criminals wanted on a charge of operating an illegal printing press in Paris. But before you jump to the conclusion that this means counterfeit bank notes, listen to the rest of the puzzle. They weren’t printers of forged money, apparently – all they seem to have printed were old French newspapers!’

‘How old were the newspapers supposed to be?’ Holt enquired.

‘Anything from eighty to ninety-five years. Odd, isn’t it? Why reprint exact replicas of Parisian newspapers of the 1870s and 1880s?’

Holt paused. ‘I require notice of that question.’

The Inspector smiled. ‘Fair enough. When you come up with some more of your inspired guesswork on this little conundrum I’ll be delighted to hear from you.’

Holt nodded. ‘It’ll give me something to think about while I’m waiting for Professor Dalesford to douse the lights at the College tonight.’