فصل 09 - 04

I arrived back at Little Furze just a few minutes before lunch time and went out to join Joanna on the veranda. There were two chairs by the iron table and two empty glasses on it. On another chair was a strange object. ‘What on earth is this?’ I asked.

‘Oh. It’s a photograph of a diseased lung which Dr Griffith thought I’d be interested in.’

I looked at the photograph. Every man has his own ways of connecting with women. But I would not, myself, choose to do it with photographs of lungs, diseased or otherwise.

‘It looks most unpleasant,’ I said. ‘How was Griffith?’

‘He looked tired and very unhappy. I think he’s got something on his mind.’

‘I should say he’s got you on his mind. I wish you’d leave the man alone, Joanna.’

‘Oh, do be quiet. I haven’t done anything.’ She turned and walked away across the lawn.

The diseased lung was beginning to curl up in the sun. I picked it up by one corner and took it into the sitting-room. Then I pulled out a heavy book from the bookcase in order to press the photograph flat again between its pages. It was a book of somebody’s sermons and it came open in my hand in a surprising way. In moment I saw why. From the middle of it a number of pages had been neatly cut out.

I was looking at the book which Poison Pen must have used to cut out words to use in the anonymous letters. But who had cut the pages out?

Well, it could have been anyone who had been alone in this room, any visitor who had sat here waiting for Emily Barton. So, almost anyone in Lymstock.