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esteem in which we all hold you, my lord marquis.”
    “I would not abuse your confidence, I assure Your Highness,” Marquis Sherrinford said. “I wish to read you a letter that arrived this noon, addressed to me.” He took the letter from the table and unfolded it. “It was first opened by Lord Peter, and he passed it directly on,” he said, then began reading.
    To His Lordship, the Right Honorable the Marquis Sherrinford.
    From His Lordship the Marquis of London.
    On Monday, the 25th of April, in the Year of Our Lord 1988.
    Greetings Noble Cousin.
    I hesitate to bother Your Lordship, busy as you must be with plans for the impending coronation of His Royal Highness. I would be there myself but, as you know, pressing business keeps me in London—
    “Pressing business!” Duke Richard interrupted, laughing, “pressing weight is more like it. He hasn’t left that palace of his in something like thirteen years. There isn’t a carriage that would hold him; he’d have to hire a dray. He must weigh thirty stone.”
    “Nonetheless,” Marquis Sherrinford pointed out, “he carries out his duties as Chief Magistrate for the City of London very well.”
    “That’s so,” Sir Darryl agreed, nodding his angular, bony head. “The man never leaves his house, and yet he knows more about what goes on in London than if he ran about all day peering around corners. And the inferences he can make from the merest speck of dust or spot of food on a waistcoat are truly astonishing.”
    “Oh, yes,” Duke Richard agreed. “The man is a brilliant investigator, no question about that. A relative of yours, I believe, Darcy?”
    “Distant cousin,” Lord Darcy said.
    “Just so,” Marquis Sherrinford said. “Now, if Your Highness will permit me to continue—
    “Of course,” Duke Richard said. “Sorry.”
    “‘—pressing business keeps me in London,’” the Marquis picked up where he had left off.
    A certain piece of information has come to my attention during the routine investigation of a series of bizarre robberies. Since you are concerned with the safety of our beloved King John, I thought I had better pass it on. It is probably of no moment, but you are in a better position to judge that than I.
    At the mention of the king’s safety, a sudden palpable tension entered the room. “Our beloved King John” was not just a formula with these men, but an expression of an honestly held emotion.
    Here are the details, to the extent that we know them:
    The robber, who turned out to be one Goodman Albert Chall, was apprehended on Sunday—yesterday—by my assistant, Lord Bontriomphe who is not without a certain primitive cleverness. In trying to escape along a rooftop, Goodman Chall leaped over a parapet and fell six storeys onto a paved walk.
    Lord Bontriomphe reached him as he was expiring—it is nothing short of a miracle that he lived even that long—and held a brief colloquy with him which he subsequently quoted to me verbatim. I am sure you are familiar with Lord Bontriomphe’s abilities along that line. I quote the conversation in full:
    Bontriomphe: Just lie still, I’ve called for an ambulance.
    Chall: That ain’t no good. You know that, gov. Look at me; I’m all broken up. I can’t feel nothin’.
    Bontriomphe: Is there anything you want me to do?
    C: I got to tell you somethin’.
    B: About the robberies? You don’t have to—
    C: No, no—it’s somethin’ else. I was kind of holdin’ this as a trump, ‘case I got caught. But I won’t need it now. I won’t need nothin’ now. I want to get it said in case I—in case I don’t make it. Which it looks like I won’t.
    B: What is it?
    C: I would have told anyway. You can see that, can’t you? I would have told anyway before June first. You know that?
    B: Told what?
    C: About them killin’ His Majesty. I wouldn’t have let them do that. You believe me, don’t you? I would have told anyway. You know that.
    B: Of course I do. I believe you. Tell me