and MI5, too, I shouldn’t wonder,’ added Fred, with one of his rare grins.
Wyatt flung down his pencil and crumpled the bit of paper into a ball. He was sure they had more ducklings than that. Maybe Fred would know. Anyhow, it was a reasonable excuse for a little stroll on this very pleasant summery afternoon. He was always restless when Sally was out of the house, and if he didn’t have some active occupation he would be positively irritable by the time she returned.
Yes, he reflected, Fred often fed the ducks when Sally was away; he would have a rough idea. And if the worst came to the worst, they would have to wait until Sally came back, for they certainly couldn’t count them at this time of day, when they were foraging round the orchards.
Still frowning at the buff form in front of him, Wyatt reached for his favourite cherrywood pipe and slowly eased tobacco into its charred bowl, trying vainly to recall how many ducklings they had had at the last two hatchings … and then there was that box of seven-day-olds they had bought at the market … it was no use. When the pipe was burning smoothly he reached for his stick. At that moment, there was the sound of a car stopping in the short drive at the front of the house. Wyatt stood listening. Surely Sally couldn’t be back already …
Suddenly the old-fashioned front-door bell jangled imperiously. Perhaps it was Sally after all, and she’d forgotten her key …
Wyatt limped across the room and into the hall. Before he could reach the front door, the bell rang again even more noisily.
‘All right, damn you,’ he muttered under his breath. Little irritations like this upset him more than most people. He flung open the door, expecting to see one of the ladies of the village collecting for some charity.
But there were two men standing there, and one was a very familiar figure.
‘Good lord! Sir James!’ murmured Wyatt, blinking in the strong sunlight. For the Assistant Commissioner of New Scotland Yard was one of the last visitors he had expected to see there. Apart from the prompt payment of his pension, Wyatt had received no communication from his former employers for over two years. One after another, several suspicions surged through Wyatt’s mind as to why his former chief was visiting him, but Sir James offered no immediate solution to the problem.
He stood there smiling, looking as distinguished as ever in his well-cut medium-grey suit, neat black tie and white shirt. His hair was a shade more sparse around the temples, but he looked much the same as ever to Wyatt.
Sir James introduced his somewhat saturnine companion as Chief Inspector Lathom, who was new to Wyatt, but seemed to have heard quite a lot about him. They gossiped for a few minutes, with Sir James explaining that he and Lathom had been to Sittingbourne and had decided to make a detour on their way back to look up Sir James’ former colleague.
‘You’re just in time for a cup of tea,’ said Wyatt, after they had accepted his invitation to come inside. ‘Unless you’d prefer a whisky and soda.’
‘Just a small one, if you can run to it,’ said Perivale. Wyatt looked across at Lathom, who nodded his agreement, and he took three glasses from the sideboard.
Wyatt poured a generous three fingers for each of his visitors, and a smaller measure for himself.
Perivale took a gulp of whisky with obvious satisfaction and leaned back in the large armchair he had taken. ‘I could do with that, Wyatt,’ he murmured. ‘We happen to be on rather a tough job at the moment.’
Wyatt sipped his whisky somewhat cautiously, and ventured no comment, except to say that Sir James was looking quite fit.
‘I feel pretty tired,’ murmured the Assistant Commissioner. ‘I don’t mind admitting that this Willis case is taking it out of me.’
Wyatt looked thoughtful.
‘Wasn’t there something about it in the papers?’ he enquired politely.
‘There certainly was!’ put in Lathom. ‘Barbara Willis was quite a well-known Society girl – they don’t disappear without trace every day.’
Wyatt shrugged.
‘Yes, of course. She disappeared,’ he said casually. ‘Women are always doing it; they often turn up again.’
‘You certainly haven’t been reading your papers lately,’ said Lathom.
‘No, I haven’t, as a matter of fact, we’re pretty busy here this time of year, and I don’t seem to get a chance in the mornings … what happened about the Willis girl?’
Perivale placed his glass on a small table beside him and leaned forward in his chair.
‘On the day Barbara Willis disappeared,’ he began slowly, ‘she had been to the theatre with her fiancé, a young fellow named Maurice Knight. Afterwards, they went on to the Alpine Club in the Haymarket, leaving there about eleven-thirty. Knight apparently had some trouble with his car, so he put the girl into a taxi. The next time he saw her was four weeks later – when he was called in to identify the body.’
Wyatt whistled softly under his breath, and rammed his thumb hard into the bowl of his pipe, which he had picked up while his former chief was talking.
‘Sounds like a cosy little case,’ he commented in a non- committal tone.
‘Wait a minute,’ said Perivale. ‘There’s plenty more to come. Two days after the Willis girl had vanished, her fiancé received a diamond brooch by registered post. She had been wearing that brooch the night she disappeared; he was quite positive about it. In that registered packet with the brooch was a slip of paper, and on it was scrawled in red ink: “With the compliments of Mr Rossiter”.’
‘Well, it’s a fairly well-known name,’ ruminated Wyatt, sipping the last of his whisky. ‘Another of these exhibitionist crooks, eh?’
Sir James flicked the ash off the end of his cigarette.
‘The point is,’ he added deliberately. ‘The man who wrote it wasn’t named Rossiter. I had a couple of handwriting experts checking that writing for the better part of a week, and they are pretty certain it’s the work of your old friend who used to call himself Ariman. That was your last case before you joined up, wasn’t it?’
Wyatt nodded shortly. The man who called himself Ariman had been the toughest customer he had encountered, a blackmailer of the most unscrupulous type, two of whose victims had committed suicide. Though the Yard had been very close on the heels of the master criminal, he had used his gang unscrupulously to cover his retreat, and had managed to get out of the country at a time when most of the police resources had suddenly to be diverted to tracing a black market in forged coupons. The police had never seen him, they had no photograph, and his associates had either been sacrificed when he made his getaway, or had contrived to disappear on their own account when there was a depleted staff at the Yard, where they had been secretly relieved to discover that Ariman himself had flown. All he had left them by way of souvenir was a torn scrap of a letter addressed to one of his victims in what was presumed to be Ariman’s own handwriting.
Wyatt sat for a few moments deep in thought.
‘So that customer’s back,’ he murmured at last. ‘I always thought he’d be here again one day. I suppose he’s run through the packet of money he’s said to have taken out of
