“It is not a courteous epistle,” he remarked, tentatively.
“No,” agreed Rodney, “but it is exactly the sort of letter that one would expect from Purcell. It gives you his character in a nutshell.”
This was highly satisfactory and very creditable to Varney. “You mentioned in your note that you were going to take Barnby’s opinion on it. Have you seen him?”
“Yes, and he thinks the same as I do: that it would be a little risky to base a petition on this letter alone. The judge might smell a rat. He considers that if we could produce evidence that Purcell is actually living with another woman, this letter would be good evidence of desertion. He suggested putting a private inquiry agent on Purcell’s tracks. What do you say to that?”
“In the abstract, it is an excellent suggestion. But how are you going to carry it out? You speak of putting the agent on Purcell’s tracks. But there are no tracks. There is no place in which he is known to have been staying; there is no person known to us who has seen him since he landed at Penzance. You would start your sleuth without a scent to wander about Essex and Suffolk looking for a man whom he had never seen and would probably not recognize if he met him, and who is possibly not in either of those counties at all. It really is not a practicable scheme.”
Rodney emitted a discontented grunt. “Doesn’t sound very encouraging certainly,” he admitted. “But how do the police manage in a case of the kind?”
“By having, not one agent, but a thousand, and all in communication through a central office. And even the police fail if they haven’t enough data. But with regard to Barnby; of course his opinion has great weight. He knows the difficulties of these cases, and his outlook will probably be the judge’s outlook. But did you make clear to him the peculiarities of this case? The character of the petitioner, her excellent relations with her husband, the sudden, unforeseen manner of the disappearance and the total absence of any grounds of a suspicion of collusion? Did you present these points to him?”
“No, I didn’t. We merely discussed the letter.”
“Well, see him again and put the whole case to him. My feeling is that a petition would probably succeed.”
“I hope you are right,” said Rodney, more encouraged than he would have liked to admit. “I’ll see Barnby again. Oh, and there is another point. That letter that Purcell sent to Penfield by mistake in June. It probably throws some light on the disappearance and might be important as evidence on our side. I suppose Penfield did not tell you what was in it, or show it to you?”