The Deadly Affair Page #5

- Yes, she's absolutely definite.

Oh, I see. Well, that fixes that, doesn't it?

We'll have to think again, won't we?

Thanks all the same.

- You've been very kind. Bye-bye.

- You're welcome.

Samuel Fennan asked

for this morning's alarm call

about two and a half hours

before he shot himself last night.

An Olivetti portable!

And so was the letter

that denounced him to the Foreign Office.

Yes, Dobbs, Olivetti's are two a penny.

But everybody has one.

That is exactly my point!

I think we ought to give the facts

to the police.

And have a murder case plastered

across every front page in two hemispheres

before it turns out we misled the police?

Before the department makes a fool of itself,

let us at least try

to separate fact from hypothesis.

- By all means!

- Fact:

Fennan came home last night at 7:00

and told his wife

he was upset by your interview.

Fact:
He took a sedative

and sent his wife off to the theatre alone.

Hypothesis, my hypothesis:

He thought the sedative

might make him oversleep,

so he asked the exchange

to give him an alarm call at 8:30

on the following morning.

And then committed suicide!

It all hangs together nicely, doesn't it?

I will also hazard the hypothesis

that the sedative depressed him

rather than soothed him,

and that he accordingly shot himself

between 10:
30 and his wife's return

from the theatre at 10:45.

The 8:
30 alarm call is neither here nor there.

Then why did she have to lie about it?

Why did she say it was for her

and not for him?

Because she thought,

as she might be pardoned for thinking,

that you would use the alarm call

as a means of evading

your own responsibility for his suicide.

And she meant to have

the satisfaction of denying you that evasion.

She's a bereaved woman, Dobbs,

she needs to be placated.

Like the Foreign Office and the police,

with whom our relations are "uneasy."

- Have you anything further to say?

- Yes!

- Please say it.

- By all means.

Fact:
You are known to the Foreign Office

and the police as Marlene Dietrich.

Hypothesis, my hypothesis:

They may very well be right.

Hello, darling.

Back so soon?

How was it?

Well, it was all right, pretty hectic.

I'm sorry I forgot to phone.

- Morning, Mrs Bird!

- Morning, Mr Dobbs.

- Guess who's blown into London.

- I haven't the faintest idea.

- Guess. Please.

- I cannot guess!

Dieter Frey!

Servus, Charles.

Oh, Dieter!

Dieter!

Oh, welcome back!

It must be two years.

Yes. We went to that first night,

do you remember?

Oh, that awful old actor

playing Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

at the Lyric Hammersmith!

What did The Times say?

Oh, yes, he said,

"Mr Aubrey Hunter's Dr Jekyll

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