“May I put a question?”

“Of course. As many as occur to you, Easter. Go ahead.”

“You said that the Thomas woman was a bad security risk during the war. What’s the connection?”

“She wrote the script for a radio show called ‘Bless ’emAll’, primarily directed at the troops. It was beforeM. I., or whoever was supposed to look after subversive activities, realised that vital information could be passed to the enemy via our radio services. The show was a weekly broadcast, and she was abruptly taken off it.

“The main point is that Myra Thomas was once a security risk, and is still faintly regarded as such. When she disappeared within a few miles-comparative-of the atomic testing ground and the rocket range, the Security people in Canberra added the fact to their record. And then, Easter, when old Lonergan’s diary turned up and a check was made proving there was not one registered helicopter within a million miles of their precious secrets, they actually added two to two, and came up with what certainly looks something like four.”

“The relatives, then, sent the diary to Security?” surmised Easter.

“No. They handed the diary to the local police officer, who passed it on, and eventually it was received by your H.Q. in Perth. It was passed directly to Canberra, and at some conference or other it was realised that Lonergan hadn’t mentioned in his diary which direction the mysterious machine was flying when he saw it, and no one knew where such places as Curley’s Hate and Bumblefoot Hole happened to be, as they were not marked on their maps.

“Fortunately, the police were represented at that conference by a firm friend of mine, Superintendent Bolt, who argued that one man on the ground would be more likely to succeed in locating the mysterious helicopter, the people flying it, their activities, and the association with them, if any, by the missing Myra Thomas, than could possibly be learned by a couple of fleets of jets flying around the Nullarbor Plain. When they asked him who the man on the ground was to be, Bolt had the obvious answer.”