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skill and experience. They used for weapons whatever pieces of furniture came to hand.
    The only people who took no part in the fight were Albert Rugg and Willie Cookson. Albert, because no one had time to untie him. Willie, because he was hit on the head by a small table and lost interest.
    Fortunately, before anyone could be killed, a soap-stone model of St. Paul’s Cathedral was thrown by Stan Corner through the window and landed at the feet of P.C. Owers, who summoned assistance on his pocket wireless and went to join the party.
    “It’s a funny thing,” said Petrella to Watterson, “but no one seems to want to prefer charges.”
    “Not even Rugg? Owers says they had him tied up with his socks in his mouth.”
    “I think Rugg has got a guilty conscience,” said Petrella.
    “I suppose we could charge them with a breach of the peace.”
    “It was a fairly private fight,” said Petrella. “Until they nearly brained Owers with that cathedral.”
    “We must do something about it. If we don’t, we shall have a gang war on our hands.”
    This was the second prediction which Superintendent Watterson had made. It, too, was proved false. The final act took place, some weeks later, in Mr. Tasker’s office, near the Oval.
    A deed was signed by William Cookson and Albert Rugg (“hereinafter called the partners”). Cookson supplied the money, which the insurance company had now reluctantly paid up, and Rugg supplied the premises. The new garage was to be called the Premier-Octagon.
    “It’s called rationalisation,” said Petrella, when he heard about it. He was reading a particularly unpleasant anonymous note.

The Death of Mrs. Key
     
    The letter, written in capitals on a sheet of plain white paper, said:
     
    “HOW MUCH DID FRED BARRON PAY YOU TO PERJURE YOURSELF? I EXPECT SCOTLAND YARD WOULD LIKE TO KNOW. SO I’M GOING TO TELL THEM. NOT NOW. PROBABLY NEXT WEEK. THINK ABOUT IT.”
     
    “When did you get this?” said Petrella.
    “This morning,” said Constable Owers. He looked half amused, half angry. “I kept the envelope. I thought you’d want it.”
    The envelope was a large yellow one, and Constable Owers’s name and address was neatly typed on it.
    “Whoever sent it,” said Petrella, “can’t have known a lot about police procedure.”
    Fred Barron had long been under suspicion of being a receiver of stolen goods, and this was the charge that the police would dearly have liked to pin on him. The Director of Public Prosecutions had studied the available evidence, and had advised against it. A summons under the Shops Act, which they could make stick, had been substituted. Constable Owers had been the main police witness, but the decision on which charge to prefer had been nothing to do with him.
    “I wasn’t worried,” said Owers, “but I thought you ought to see it. I heard a buzz that quite a lot of people have been getting billy-doos like this.”
    “I heard the same,” said Petrella. “I did wonder if Mrs. Key might have been getting them.”
    This was on Saturday. Mrs. Key had died on the Thursday. She was a frail lady, in her middle sixties, crippled with arthritis. Some time during the evening, when her companion and helper, Mrs. Oldenshaw, had departed and she was quite alone, she had wheeled herself, in her invalid chair, into the kitchen, had shut the windows and door and blocked up the gap under the door with a roller towel, and had turned on all the taps on her gas cooker.
    Neighbours coming back late that night had smelled the gas and called the police.
    “What makes ‘em do it?” said Owers. “Send letters like that, I mean. That last bit, about waiting before reporting me. It was meant to make me sweat, wasn’t it?”
    “One part badness and three parts madness. If everyone was as sensible as you, and brought them straight along to us, we might have a chance of catching them. I wonder how many people have had them and kept quiet about them?”
    An unexpected answer to