The photograph, as usual, was signed “Strix” and was reproduced, by arrangement, from a Sydney newspaper.

“That, I imagine,” said Alleyn, “will have torn it!”

“So it seems. Look at this.”

It was a letter addressed to “The Head of Scotland Yard, London” and written a week before the invitations to the Alleyns on heavy paper endorsed with an elaborate monogram: “I.S.” lavishly entwined with herbage. The envelope was bigger than the ones received by the Alleyns but of the same make and paper. The letter itself occupied two and a half pages, with a gigantic signature. It had been typed, Alleyn noticed, on a different machine. The address was “Chateau Australasia, Sydney.”

“The Commissioner sent it down,” said the A.C. “You’d better read it.”

Alleyn did so. The typed section merely informed the recipient that the writer hoped to meet one of his staff, Mr. Alleyn, at Waihoe Lodge, New Zealand, where Mr. Alleyn’s wife was commissioned to paint the writer’s portrait. The writer gave the dates proposed. The recipient was of course aware of the outrageous persecution — and so on along the already familiar lines. Her object in writing to him, she concluded, was that she hoped Mr. Alleyn would be accorded full authority by the Yard to investigate this outrageous affair and she remained—.

“Good God,” said Alleyn quietly.

“You’ve still got a postscript,” the A.C. observed.

It was handwritten and all that might be expected. Points of exclamation proliferated. Underscorings doubled and trebled to an extent that would have made Queen Victoria’s correspondence appear by contrast a model of stony reticence. The subject matter lurched into incoherence, but the general idea was to the effect that if the “Head of Scotland Yard” didn’t do something pretty smartly he would have only himself to blame when the writer’s career came to a catastrophic halt. On her knees she remained distractedly and again in enormous calligraphy, sincerely, Isabella Sommita.