“I think I shall send for Peggy,” Wilhelmina said. “She is always so sweet to the Church.”
Deyes grinned.
“I shall go round and look her up,” he declared. “Perhaps she’ll come and have lunch with me somewhere.”
She held out her hand.
“You’re a good sort to have gone over for me,” she said. “The things you tumbled up against you’d better forget.”
“Until you remind me of them,” he said. “Very well, I’ll do that. Sorry I didn’t run Johnny to earth.”
He went off, and Wilhelmina after a few minutes went to her desk and wrote a letter to Stephen Hurd.
“As usual,” she wrote, “when you were here this morning I forgot to mention several matters upon which I meant to speak to you. The first is with regard to the man whose brutal assault upon your father caused his death. I understand that the police have never traced him, have never even found the slightest clue to his whereabouts. The more I think of this, the more strange it seems to me, and I am inclined to believe that he never, after all, escaped from the wood in which he first took shelter. I know that the slate quarry was dragged at the time, but I have been told that this was hastily done, and that there are several very deep holes into which the man’s body may have drifted. I wish you, therefore, to send over to Nottingham to get some experienced men to bring back the drags and make an exhaustive search. Please have this done without delay.
“Further, I wish to communicate with the young man Macheson, who was in Thorpe at the time. They may know his address at the post-office, but if you are unable to procure it in any other way, you must advertise in your own name. Please carry out my instructions in these two matters immediately.”