The Price of Butcher's Meat

2

Good day to you, Andy.

Surprised to hear my voice?

Of course you are, but not perhaps as surprised as a lesser mortal might have been. For it is your capacity for taking a couple of long strides in a direction you’ve no reason to be going in, plus of course your sheer bloody tenacity of purpose, that have made me decide to contact you like this.

I know you hate loose ends, you hate a story unfinished, and so do I. So let me, like the all-seeing, all-knowing author of an old novel, stepping from behind the scenery he or she has created and addressing the reader direct, finish this one for you. Nor is this a simple act of that overinflated egotism you have accused me of in the past. There is a strong possibility, if left to your own devices, that you might inflict considerable collateral damage traveling by your normal elephantine route to the sunny uplands of knowledge I am now going to open up for you-damage to myself, I admit it, but also and more important to Peter’s career, to the lives of various other people I have come to love, to the prospects and reputation of dear little Sandytown, which has taken some hard knocks recently, and even perhaps to yourself.

Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery. I quit such odious subjects as soon as I can, impatient to restore everybody, not greatly in fault themselves, to tolerable comfort. Myself included. This is not a confession. I have committed no crime, or at least none so serious as to be unforgivable by such a magnanimous judge as yourself.

Some brief autobiography first, to confirm or build on your speculation. I went to Europe determined to find a cure, and not much caring what form it came in. Ultimately, death is the cure of all diseases, is it not? I found a doctor as careless of his patients’ lives as I was of my own. To him each death was a necessary step on his way to greater understanding. I will skip the months of pain and struggle which ensued. It is not your sympathy which I am trying to win. But if you are interested, I gave Peter some of the details, slightly confused since, of course, I could only leave him with the hope of my restoration, not its fact. Suffice it to say, I learned how to walk again. I would have been happy to heap praise and gratitude on Dr. Meitler, my savior, and demand that his groundbreaking techniques be universally acknowledged and developed. Alas, he was as reckless of his own well-being as he was of his patients’, his laboratory was a firetrap, and while I was still learning how to crawl out of my chair, the good doctor and all his research records went up in flame.

So I kept quiet. My motive at first was a kind of vanity. I wanted to reappear before those who knew me fully restored. I wanted to amaze them! But as the long months of recovering my strength passed, I began to see that there might be certain advantages to keeping the change to myself. Travel, for instance. As I explained to you, it had become clear that, in the present climate, there was no way I would ever be able to visit America again. But if I could find another persona, another identity for my upright, perambulating self…

When I returned to the Davos Avalon, my thoughts were still confused, and I think I might have revealed everything to the head of the clinic, Dr. Kling, with whom I’d developed an excellent relationship. But I found he had done an exchange with Lester Feldenhammer, so I kept quiet, and kept to my chair. Then two things happened. Firstly, and sadly, a young man I had become friendly with in my previous stay at the clinic, Emil Kunstli-Geiger, died. He had just been admitted when I first met him and there were hopes he might recover. But after some false starts, his condition had deteriorated and now the end was near. He was pleased to see me again and I gave him what comfort was in my power. Strangely it was talking to Emil then as much as my own experience that made me start taking the ideas of Third Thought seriously. But my first and second thoughts were always of life, and one day while getting something for him from a drawer in his room, I came across his passport and his driving license. As I made the sad comparison between the way he’d looked then and the way he looked now, it struck me that there was a certain resemblance between us: shape of face, bone structure, that sort of thing.

A few days later he died. Before he passed away he thanked me for my care and urged me to take something to remember him by. I took his passport and driving license.

A long wig and a fringe of wispy beard, and suddenly I had another identity, though what I was going to do with it, I still wasn’t sure.

Meanwhile my relationship with Lester had been developing. Here was a man I could talk to. We were not yet so intimate as to be on confidential terms, but when Daphne Denham and her entourage showed up last Christmas, I quickly assessed the situation. She was the predator, he was the prey! But I had little time to spare analyzing Lester’s problems. I knew I had one of my own.

Do you believe in love at first sight, Andy? When you first encountered your partner, Cap Marvell, did you know she was the one for you? I can tell from the way you talk about her how much she means to you-yes, as I’m sure you’ve worked out by now, I’ve listened to all your fascinating recordings-but there’s no way of telling if it was a long slow burn or a sudden explosion.

With me and Esther Denham it was explosive. On my side it was like a message stamped on my soul with a white-hot iron-this is the woman for you! On hers, it was rather different. More, oh Jesus, I don’t believe this-can I really fancy a guy in a wheelchair? Get out of here now, you crazy bitch!

I could see she was attracted, could tell how much this shocked her. I knew she was resolved once she got out of the room, she’d make sure she never saw me again. In fact, she made an excuse almost immediately, said she needed to go to the loo. I boldly offered to show her where it was, a bit of behavior which might have struck Lester and Daph as odd if he hadn’t been in such a state of panic and she of lust!

We got to the bathroom, she opened the door and stepped inside, I pushed in behind her, she turned in anger which became amazement as I rose up out of my chair and kissed her.

There followed a moment of shock and resistance on her part, and on mine of terror that she was going to start screaming rape and bring the nurses running.

And then she started kissing me back, only stopping because she was laughing so much. It was, she said, so totally unexpected, so totally unimaginable, that it was comic!

I knew then I was right. She was the one for me. Except, of course, there was no way in Daphne’s eyes that, in or out of my chair, I could be the one for her. And if Ess stuck two fingers up to Daph, it wasn’t just her who’d get cut off without a penny, it was dear brother Ted.

Teddy is not, as you yourself have observed, the sharpest knife in the box. Ess has looked after him all her life. Family loyalties are, I believe, God’s way of ensuring that even the most undeserving get a bit of unconditional love. If I wanted Esther, then Ted was part of the bargain.

We started meeting, or rather she and Emil started meeting, keeping well clear of the smart end of the resort where Daph was queening it up, and mucking down with the students at the Bengel bar where I encountered George Heywood and the lovely Charley. Things got better every time we met and I knew by the end of her holiday that, however things panned out, I had to follow her home. And God, who’s an old romantic at heart, wrote the perfect scenario!

Soon, despite all he did to try to extend his stay, it was time for Lester to return to Sandytown. By now we were best buddies and it seemed perfectly natural for me to head home to England with him, to the Yorkshire that I knew so well, and to settle close to the Avalon and get involved with its work.

I cannot describe with what joy I made the journey-or with what reluctance Lester made his!

I got myself settled in my cottage. It was as secure as I could make it. Sometimes Ess would come and visit me there, riding on Ted’s bike. Sometimes we would meet elsewhere at a distance and I would become Emil and we could manage whole weekends together. I was actually enjoying both my lives, but always I anticipated the day when I could be back on my own two feet permanently with Esther by my side.

That wasn’t going to happen while Daph was alive, but I swear to you, Andy, that not once did I contemplate doing anything to get rid of her! The thing was, I came to like her, to enjoy watching her at play! And I became quite a favorite of hers. She saw I was close to Lester and she thought she was clever enough to wheedle things out of me about how he felt about her, and what was going on with Pet Sheldon! But I think she recognized a fellow spirit in me too, someone who is not perhaps too scrupulous when it comes to finding the quickest way to getting what they want!

So to the day of the hog roast.

I was sitting in my chair, enjoying the champagne and watching the great storm bubbling up over the sea when Esther came up to me. I knew instantly something was wrong. In public she usually treated me as if I were a piece of furniture!

She was extremely agitated. Something dreadful had happened, she told me.

Teddy had killed Aunt Daphne!

I was, as you might say, gobsmacked. Esther told me she’d been wandering round the grounds and by chance she’d stumbled across the body in some long grass beyond the hog roast pit. I asked how she knew Ted was responsible. She showed me that fancy fake watch he wears and said she’d found it snagged on Daph’s dress. Also, earlier that day, Daph had shown Ted a new will in which he was disinherited and they’d had a furious row.

Now you and I, Andy, sensible chaps with one eye always fixed steadily on the realities of life, might have reckoned that when someone has just written you out of their will, that is the last time you should choose to kill them!

Ted, alas, has rarely let reason cloud his behavior, and neither Ess nor myself had the slightest problem to start with in accepting his guilt. Nor did his idiocy in leaving his watch at the scene of the crime strike us as anything but typical!

I asked where Ted was now. She said she didn’t know, she couldn’t find him. The storm was starting, everyone was heading for the house, so I said, “Show me the body.”

She took me there. There was no sign of Ollie Hollis at the hog roast, which struck me as odd. Seeing old Daphne lying there was truly upsetting. She had been so full of life, so vigorous for her age, such a dedicated goer! She didn’t deserve to end up like this. I was furious with Ted, but for Esther’s sake, I had to do my best to protect him.

Esther had removed the watch but God alone knew what other traces the idiot had left. I cast around for some way of obscuring them and also of misdirecting the investigation. It came to me in a flash what I had to do.

And so with Esther’s help, I hauled the roasting cage off the barbecue pit, got the pig out of it, and put poor Daphne in.

It really broke me up to heap this further indignity upon her. There were tears in my eyes and I have begged her spirit for forgiveness and understanding since. And, knowing as I do what she herself was capable of, I do not doubt I received it.

Esther was marvelous, doing everything I told her to. By the time we were done it was pouring down and we were both soaking and filthy and Ess had managed to burn her arm.

I told her to get back to the house, find something to change into, and get hold of Ted and do what she could to make sure he didn’t do anything else stupid.

I meanwhile headed for the lowest bit of the lawn where it was turning really boggy, tipped my chair over, and rolled around in the muck to provide a reason for my dishevelment. Then I lay there, trying to see into the future, and waiting patiently for the storm to abate.

After Pet Sheldon took charge of me, there was nothing for me to do but head for home and wait until Esther reported on further developments.

She came herself on the bike later that evening. What she told me was hard to take in. She’d found Ted getting dried off and changed in the house. He had denied any knowledge of Daph’s death. He said he’d gone down to the beach with the kids. Sid had gone too. After a while, seeing that there was plenty of supervision, they’d slipped away to the old cave halfway up the cliff where they’d been banging away at each other till the storm started.

A lover isn’t the best provider of an alibi, but as we know, it can be confirmed at least in part by Charley Heywood’s testimony. (Oh yes, of course I’ve had a look at Charley’s e-mails. Why not? If the brutal and licentious constabulary can pore and paw over them, why not I? And, though it was much harder, I even managed to slide beneath Ed Wield’s defenses and take a look at his interesting analysis of the witness statements. Perhaps happiness is making him careless!)

Myself, all I needed was Esther’s assurance of Ted’s innocence. No way he could deceive her about something like that.

Which left the interesting question-what had really happened?

And who was the clever bastard who had deposited Ted’s watch on the body?

I would have loved to come clean with you and Peter from the start, but knowing how ready you are, Andy, to put me at the center of all criminality, that would merely have set the investigation on a time-wasting false trail, and poor Peter had enough of those to follow already! No, I needed to stay free to pursue my own inquiries.

I worked out that Ollie Hollis’s disappearance from the scene before the storm broke was perhaps significant. It occurred to me also to wonder why the hog roast had been delayed. I’d noticed there was some evidence of recent repair to the winding gear. Ollie’s handicraft? Perhaps. But it was well known that the actual creator of this complicated bit of machinery was Hen Hollis, persona non grata at the Hall since Hog’s death, but the first person Ollie would turn to if he experienced any serious problem. So what if Hen had been there, doing a favor for one of the clan and delighting in enjoying Daph’s booze and grub without her knowledge? Then she had stumbled across him…

I tried to hint at this possibility to Peter, but his mind was elsewhere. Ollie’s death went some way to fitting in with my theory, but all it did for Peter was provide a possible culprit, caught apparently in flagrante with regard to one crime, and reported as being at loggerheads with the victim of the other.

With the enthusiastic support of ace reporter Ruddlesdin, Peter was trumpeted as the fastest gumshoe in the east the following morning, only to discover the bays had withered before even he was crowned. With friends like Ruddlesdin, Peter really needs friends like you and me, Andy!

Then followed all that weird business about the forged will and Clara Brereton. This brought Teddy right into the foreground. Silly ass! If he’d paid any heed to Esther, he would never have attempted to contact Clara. He is the worst kind of fool-the kind that thinks he is clever!

But at the same time as Clara’s “accident” was leading Peter down another false trail, Clara’s involvement was stirring up some strange notions in me.

Wieldy was helpful here, feeding all the evidence and statements straight into his computer and thence straight into mine. As Esther got drawn into Peter’s net, I knew that unless I could make some sense out of all this, I would have to come forward and confess to my part. Meanwhile, following the old principle that a good lie is best constructed on a solid basis of truth, it seemed sensible to prepare something to keep Peter happy when he started getting close to Esther’s involvement. So we prepared a version that told the truth, except that it left me out.

Encouraged by the idiot Ruddlesdin, the media were already trumpeting another triumph for Peter. (Incidentally, doesn’t it bother you, Andy, that locally at least the media seem so eager to cry, The king is dead, long live the king!) Of course I would never have let it reach the point where Peter laid formal charges, but I was hoping to find a way to test my hypothesis that Hen Hollis must be involved before I came forward and confessed my part in the drama.

And then the sad discovery at Millstone Farm was made.

Everything fell into place. Hen, Daph’s sworn enemy, at the Hall without her knowledge or approval, had to be a prime suspect, didn’t he? His guilt-inspired suicide in the house she’d ejected him from, the house where he’d first seen the light of day, was the perfect end to what would come to look like Peter’s perfect investigation! It was also a result that cleared the Denhams and left me free to make my miraculous recovery (which I hope you’ve enjoyed!) and walk off with my beloved and now rather rich Esther into the golden sunset. I should have been as happy as Peter and the press at this conclusion to his labors.

But like you, Andy, I am both blessed and cursed with the kind of mind that cannot leave things alone.

I found myself recalling Pet Sheldon’s description of her encounter with Daph by the stable not long before her death. She was angry, yes. But what struck Pet was that she was hurt, she was upset.

Making Daph angry wasn’t difficult. Upsetting her was a lot harder.

Also I was troubled by the placing of Ted’s watch by the body. That was the act of a mind under control, not a mind spiraling into a panic that would rapidly lead to another murder followed by self-destruction.

And at a simple practical level, how would Hen have known he would find Ted’s watch with his clothes in the room where he changed in the Hall?

But above and beyond all these doubts, reservations, and queries, I had some special knowledge.

I have always been fascinated by the behavior of my fellow human beings, their vanities, their hopes, their fears, their strengths, their weaknesses, above all their deceptions both of themselves and others. So in the months I have been living here in Sandytown I have taken careful note of what goes on about me. It is marvelous how eventually such notes of things apparently disconnected and of very little consequence may, so long as you do not try to force an issue or superimpose a pattern, come together to make a clear and often surprising picture.

Charley Heywood has an inkling of this and will, I suspect, become a very fine clinical psychologist. You too, dear Andy, are in your own way a painter of such pictures, at times almost an artist. As I say, it is my suspicion you might already be sensing an outline that moves me to talk to you now.

What I had come to understand was that dear Daphne, a woman of strong appetites that the advancing years had done nothing to take the edge off, needed more than the odd encounter with a reluctant Lester to satisfy her needs. Once she had him chained up in the matrimonial bedroom, I do not doubt he would soon have been taught how to sing for his supper, but while the pursuit was on, she needed someone else to keep her in trim, someone vigorous enough to meet her high standards, and someone with very good reason to keep the liaison discreet.

She found him in Alan Hollis. He was in her employ. More, he was going to receive the reward of the freehold of the Hope and Anchor when she died. She could see him on a regular basis to “go over the accounts.” The frequency of these meetings surprised no one who knew her attention to detail in matters of money. The living accommodation at the pub was used only by Hollis himself, and by lawyer Beard and his secretary when they came to town. (Your own feeling that Miss Gay might be worth talking to suggests that your mind was already drifting in this direction, Andy. Am I right?)

So she felt safe and secure in using Alan as her source of regular servicing. And had she continued to regard this as a simple mechanical transaction, perhaps all might have been well. Alas for her (and this is often the case with the willful and self-centered personality) familiarity bred not contempt but something like affection.

She came to like and to trust Alan Hollis, and to believe her feelings were reciprocated.

Oh, Andy, there is a lesson here for you and for me. Never believe that those whom we use actually like us!

And now I must reach to the uttermost limits of hypothesis, based on such a flimsy ground of evidence and tragic hints that I can only justify it to myself by presenting it in the form of narrative fiction. Indulge me a while!

Daphne Denham, her soul in a state of considerable agitation after her confrontation with her deceitful nephew, looked out of her window and saw at his work the one man she knew could restore her inner harmony.

“Alan,” she called. “Would you step inside a moment, please. There is a matter of accounting I need to discuss with you.”

Hollis obeyed, they went up to her room, and a little while later she emerged, with the placid smile on her face of a woman whose entries have been double-checked and whose books are in perfect balance.

For the next hour or so she moved serenely among her guests, receiving their compliments and gratitude with graceful condescension, till a rough encounter with the uncouth Mr. Godley, a guest at her party only because he was a protégé of her neighbor Mr. Parker disturbed the even tenor of her ways. Seeking solitude to recover her equilibrium of spirit, she moved away from the main body of the party and found herself approaching the site of the actual hog roast. Irritated already that her man Ollie Hollis had sent word of a delay in preparation caused by some defect in the machinery, she was further annoyed not to find him by the roasting cage, basting the revolving pig.

A sound, or a combination of sounds, caught her attention.

It came from the machine hut. It sounded like a champagne cork popping, accompanied by upraised voices and raucous laughter.

She approached, angry reproaches forming on her lips, an anger increased when she recognized one of the voices as that of her pet hate, Hen Hollis.

And then she stopped in her tracks as another voice, even more familiar, rang in her ears. It was the voice of Alan Hollis, her servant, her server, and, so she foolishly believed, her friend.

What he was saying chilled the blood in her veins.

“Aye, fill us up, Hen, it’s been hard graft today. And the hardest bit of all was tupping her ladyship! By God she’s a handful-nay, she’s a barrowful! It’s like being in bed with a prize porker. And that’s just what she sounds like when she comes, tha knows, like one of her own pigs when you slit its throat. Whee whee whee, it squeals, and that’s the noise Daph makes too. Whee whee whee-oo, don’t stop, Alan-whee whee wheee!”

Lady Denham turned and rushed away, not stopping till she reached the stables. Here, to her beloved old horse, Ginger, she poured out her heart. For the time being anger had been drowned by hurt, that this man to whom she had given herself with abandon, this man whom she had trusted and even liked, this man who had been the beneficiary of her generosity in life and who would be an even greater beneficiary on her death, this man had betrayed her, had mocked her, had bandied her name around in the company of his low relations, had given her archenemy, Hen Hollis, a weapon to mock her with…. How could she bear the pain? she asked dear patient Ginger. How could she bear the shame?

There was a noise behind her. She turned to see another object of her hate approaching, Nurse Sheldon, her rival for the affections of Dr. Feldenhammer. What had she heard? Had she said anything to the horse that Sheldon could use against her?

The creature was daring to look sympathetic, to ask if she was all right! This was not to be borne! She dashed the tears from her eyes and set out to put the creature in her place. A few moments later she had reduced her to a quivering wreck capable of nothing more than the futile gesture of hurling a glass of wine.

Fortified by this triumph, Lady Denham felt just anger coursing through her veins to replace those weakling emotions of hurt and distress. These Hollises would find out who they were dealing with!

Back she went to the hog roast hut. Silence fell as she stood in the entrance. Behind her the sky grew lurid as the storm approached, a sheet of distant lightning etched her against its fleeting brightness.

“Ollie Hollis,” she cried, “you can start looking for a new job tomorrow morning. Hen Hollis, you are trespassing on my land. If you are not gone in five minutes, I will set the dogs on you. And as for you, Alan Hollis, I am giving you notice to quit the Hope and Anchor. And when you go, take a long look back, for by then I shall have removed your name from my will and the Hope and Anchor will be as far out of your reach as loyalty and decency clearly are from your soul!”

As she finished, thunder rolled through the air. She turned and walked away, triumphant, confident that nothing Hollis could say could be anything more than a gnat’s bite to the reputation of Lady Daphne Denham.

Then she felt a hand on her shoulder. She turned. It was Alan Hollis. His once longed-for touch was now anathema to her. She slapped his face. To her shock and horror he struck her back. She fell, cracking her head against a stone. But worse was to come. For the second time that day she felt the weight of his body upon her. Once more she was squealing like a stuck pig, but this time the resemblance went further than mere sound. For his hands were round her throat, and she was truly dying.

I think that probably gets as near the truth as any fiction does, Andy. I reckon Ollie would panic and take off; Hen, after his initial delight that his old enemy is dead, would probably begin to consider the consequences as they might affect him, but cool-headed Alan would get him to drag Daphne into the long grass, then tell him to make himself scarce, there was no reason anyone should ever know he’d been there.

Now Alan himself heads back to the hall. The storm is getting nearer and people are getting agitated. He sees Clara and tells her what’s happened. Why would he do that? you ask. Because, my dear Watson, another little bit of local knowledge I have acquired through keeping my sharp blue eyes skinned is that dear calm and collected Clara has been following auntie’s example and sampling Alan’s wares herself! She it was, I suspect, who came up with the clever idea of putting Ted in the frame. I mean, he was the most obvious suspect, and she happened to know where he’d left his clothes and his watch when he changed to go swimming. So while Alan takes charge of relocating the booze into the house, she slips off, breaks the clasp of the watch, and snags it on Daph’s dress. Then she returns, and she and Alan give each other an alibi for all the significant period.

Later that evening, Ollie fetches up at the pub, still in a state. His asthma is so bad he heads off to Miss Lee’s for relief. It is clear to Alan that Ollie cannot be relied on. Sooner or later he’s going to come clean about what happened. When Hen shows up a little later, Alan first of all makes it clear that in the eyes of the law they will be equally guilty. Okay, Hen may get a lighter sentence because he didn’t actually strangle Daphne, but he’ll still be going to jail. And, here’s the clincher, Alan probably assures him that he will not be able to inherit Millstone Farm. (Interesting legal point that, as it was by Hog’s will, not Daphne’s, that it reverted to Hen, but I don’t suppose he was in a state of mind to debate such niceties!)

He then tells him where he’ll find Ollie. To be fair, perhaps all he meant was for Hen to try and talk some sense into him, but when it turned out that Hen had gone over the top and stuck a needle right through the poor sod’s spine, that must have seemed like a sign from whatever God Alan worships that everything was going his way!

Now the only weak link remaining is Hen. Easily dealt with. Alan knows where he’ll be, and that night he heads out to Millstone with a bottle of scotch.

Could be Hen had already done the deed, but I doubt it. Whatever, by the time Alan leaves, Hen is dangling from a rope in the stairwell, there’s a suicide note on the kitchen table, and at a single stroke Alan has got rid of the one remaining witness and provided the police with a self-confessed murderer.

As it turns out, this has another benefit. With Ted no longer a suspect, there is nothing to prevent him coming into his rightful estate. Clara had already tried one trick to get at Ted’s huge inheritance-by threatening to publish the second will. Of course that’s been no use since everyone got to know it was a fake. But she has another card up her sleeve now. Did she fall or was she pushed? Well, I’ve no idea. Either’s possible, knowing Ted. Whichever it was, the threat that Clara might suddenly get her memory back is going to be very useful.

But not to worry, Andy. I’ll make sure that Ted pays nothing till she publicly recalls that it was an accident. I think that will be worth a few thou, don’t you? And really, Clara deserves a supplement to her meager inheritance, I think. To Daph in most things she was a very good and faithful servant.

Of course, the big question to such a devotee of justice as yourself is what to do about cunning old, ruthless old Alan Hollis.

Rest easy, Andy. There are some forms of justice best left in the hands of God. Why not leave it to Him to summon Alan to the great central court in the sky where, I do not doubt that, as He dispenses his justice, attending on his right side will be dear old Daphne Denham and on his left revolting old Hen Hollis. How apt it would be if the Lord arranged things so that Alan’s comeuppance could be traced, however indirectly, to Daphne herself?

Well, nothing is impossible, Andy. Who should know that better than I?

So there we are. Of course it’s going to be hard to prove any of this, and what would be the point? What I say is mostly speculation, Peter’s got his result, and all you’ll do if you try to stir things up is make either him or yourself look an awful ass.

I suppose you could educe this little statement of mine in evidence of something. Would it be admissible? I don’t know, but, if so, then that would mean that everything you yourself have committed to Mildred (love the name, by the way) would be equally admissible, if anyone had a copy and a reason for publishing it. Our private thoughts can be so embarrassing, not to mention the revelation of all those little corners we’ve cut, those little pleasures we’ve enjoyed. I must say I’m surprised at you, Andy, choosing to hide Mildred in the cistern! The indignity to her person apart, nowadays we have all been so educated in criminality by television that it’s the first place anyone would look!

But no need to worry about her. She is quite safe. No worries about me either. Restored to rude health by a miracle (and it was a miracle, Andy, with only the timing a little displaced) I shall not readily forget that I owe God a life. I have my literary work, I have my Third Thought mission, I have the woman I love by my side-what possible threat can I pose to the world in general or yourself in particular? Like Scrooge I am a converted sinner. My name will probably descend to future generations as a synonym for benevolence and magnanimity!

So there we are, Andy. Tell Peter I shall drop in on him soon, to let dear Rosie see for herself that I am still the same upright young man I always was!

Will our paths cross again?

Of course they will, in this life or the next.

So let me end not with a definitive good-bye, but with a hopeful auf Wiedersehen!

By the way, to delete, you just press the small D symbol on the bottom left of the control pad. Then if you want to delete everything, press it again.

Be clever, dear Andy, and let who will be good!

Slainte!