“Silly ass!” Briggs said, making no attempt to lower his voice as he looked after the secretary with contempt, after which he brought his attention to the letter he had been handed. He turned it over to study it from all sides.
Simpson was leaning forward eagerly. “From Billy-Boy?”
“Not unless he broke his arm and was writing with his left hand,” Briggs said, and then suddenly nodded, his writer’s brain — or ex-writer’s brain, that is — suddenly afire. Old habits die hard. “That’s probably it. He’s probably in some nursing home someplace with a broken arm. Probably couldn’t stand the thought of cucumber sandwiches so he stepped in front of a lorry; it wasn’t the river at all. Or maybe he’s just faking the broken arm, just pretended to be struck by a lorry, to get the food they serve in nursing homes — although,” he said, thinking about it, “that doesn’t make much sense. But he was struck by a lorry on his way here to meet us, yesterday. He was carried to this nursing home, unconscious, and when he came to his senses he knew we would be worried, so he managed to get his hands on a pencil and some note paper, and—”
“How?” Simpson asked, intrigued.
“By getting a nurse’s attention in the emergency area, of course—”
“How?” Simpson was nothing if not a perfectionist where plot was concerned.
“By... by... by pinching her—”
“Where?”
“In the rear. That’s allowable these days,” Briggs said with a snort. “We couldn’t have gotten away with that in a million years; today it’s almost obligatory. Anyway, once he had her attention, he reached over and took the pencil that was clipped to her uniform blouse just where her excessive cleavage started to become interesting. It’s all the rage these days, that sort of stuff, you know,” he said gloomily. “That’s undoubtedly why we couldn’t give our stuff away, even if we were writing. Which, of course, we are not.”
“And the sheet of paper and the envelope?” Simpson asked, intrigued, still back at the nursing home.
“He simply asked her for a sheet of paper and an envelope and she handed them over,” Briggs said shortly, no longer interested in the plot. “Plus a stamp, of course. They have scads of stamps in nursing homes.”
“I’m sorry, Tim,” Simpson said apologetically. Something had been tickling his memory and he finally recalled what it was. “But I already used that plot. Not the pinch in the rear or the excessive cleavage bit, of course, but the man pretending to be struck by a lorry just to be carried to a nursing home where he gets the attention of the head nurse and asks for writing material—”
“So you did!” Briggs said, also recalling the novel. “When he gets the pencil he stabs her to death with it, a pencil she had just sharpened herself at his request. I thought the symbolism was quite profound; for those days, that is, of course. You called the book Up to the Eraser, if I’m not mistaken.”
“Exactly!” Simpson said, pleased that Briggs had remembered. “This nurse had jilted this man when they were mere youngsters in the village of Muggling-in-the-Fields, Berks, and now thirty years later he comes back from Borneo for his revenge. He had been raising garlic in Borneo, and had the habit of checking the tenderness of young garlic by poking it with a sharpened pencil, so when he went into this restaurant after the killing—”
“And they served him with garlic—”
“And he inadvertently poked it with the death weapon—”
“And the garlic turned red—”
“The waiter made a citizen’s arrest!” Simpson beamed. Then his face fell. “Up to the Eraser never did as well as I had hoped for, now that I recall.”
“A lack of appreciation by an unworthy public,” Briggs said commiseratingly. “However, to get back to this,” he said, weighing the letter thoughtfully in one of his little hands, “why on earth do you suppose Billy-Boy went to all the trouble of disguising his handwriting so successfully, when all he had to do was simply telephone us?”
“Possibly the nurse, while amply supplied with stamps, lacked the proper coin?”
“Possibly—”
“But, of course, one could open the letter and find out?”
Briggs nodded. “Not a bad idea.” He slit the envelope with a thumbnail, removed the neatly folded sheet of paper within, and began to read it while Simpson waited anxiously. While the printing might not have given excessive pleasure to any Spencerian, it was quite legible. To Briggs it was also rather startling. “Well, well!” he said softly, his eyebrows rising dramatically, and handed the missive over to Simpson.
Simpson, mystified, put aside the tarred rope he had been nurturing, took the letter, and adjusted its distance from his aging eyes until he was able to focus properly. He read it quickly. “Oh, my!” he said, for the letter read:
Gentlemen:
Your friend, William Carruthers, has been kidnaped. At present he is still alive and in good condition. If you want him to stay that way, do what this letter tells you, and do it exactly!
Get ten thousand pounds together in small and unmarked bills and put them in an overnight bag. One of you bring this bag to Euston Station on September 15th — tomorrow night — which will give you plenty of time to cash in any stocks or bonds or get to a safety-deposit box to raise the dough.
You will take the train that leaves Euston Station at 11:16 bound for North Southerly. You will be in the last car. At approximately 11:58 the train is due to arrive at East Westerly, between Crumley-under-Chum and Glossop-in-Dorp. You will place the overnight bag with the money on the East Westerly platform and return at once to the train.
If there are any cops involved, or if our messenger who picks up the ransom money is interfered with in any way, your fat friend is dead! We kid you not!
There was, not surprisingly, no signature.
“Well,” Briggs said, with an attempt to put the best face on a poor situation, “it’s a good thing he didn’t ask for one pound six shillings tuppence, instead of his ten thousand quid.”
“Why?” Simpson asked, puzzled.
“Because I’ve got one pound six shillings tuppence,” Briggs explained, “and after that I’d be flat.”
“But what shall we do?” Simpson asked desperately. “This is dreadful! Shall we go to the police?”
“And receive one of Billy-Boy’s ears in the next post with an added demand? No,” Briggs said quietly, “that doesn’t seem to be the answer.” Faced with a real crisis, his normal belligerency had disappeared, replaced by a bit of hard thought. He tapped the missive thoughtfully with his forefinger as he studied it carefully. “Cheap paper, cheap envelope, manufactured by the millions, available at any stationers. Printed almost certainly by a right-handed person using his left hand — note the slope of the letters. Undoubtedly wearing gloves, and therefore leaving no fingerprints. By an American, incidentally, considering his language—”
“His language?”
“Of course. You will note that he says ‘bills’ instead of ‘notes’ and uses the word ‘dough’ for money. And he says ‘cops’ rather than ‘police’ or ‘bobbies’. And that rather sophomoric ‘I kid you not.’” Briggs shook his head. “But the most obvious clue to his nationality, I should think, lies in the fact that he refers to Billy-Boy as being fat—”
“But Billy-Boy is fat,” Simpson said. He had been following Briggs’s masterful exposition with bated breath, but he could not help but interrupt in the interest of honesty.