Can lay on nature, is a paradise

To what we fear of death.

It was difficult to interpret that familiar passage as a personal threat; but most of the other quotations could be seen as more directly intimidating, hinting, she thought, at some retribution for real or imagined wrongs.

He that dies pays all debts.

Oh, thou weed!

Who art so lovely fair and smellest so sweet

That the sense aches at thee, would thou hadst ne'er been born!

Some care had been taken in the choice of illustration. The skull adorned the lines from Hamlet,

Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come.

as it did a passage which Cordelia thought might be from John Webster, although she couldn't identify the play.

Being heretofore drown'd in security, You know not how to live, nor how to die; But I have an object that shall startle you, And make you know whither you are going.

But, even allowing for the sensitivity of an actress, it would take a fairly robust egotism to wrench these familiar words from their contexts and apply them to oneself; that, or. a fear of dying so strong as to be morbid. She took a new notebook from her desk drawer and asked: 'How do they arrive?'

'Most come by post in the same type of envelope as the paper and with the address typed. My wife didn't think to keep any of the envelopes. A few were delivered by hand either at the theatre or at our London flat. One was pushed under the dressing-room door during the run of Macbeth. The first half-dozen or so were destroyed – best thing to do with them all in my view. These twenty-three are all we now have. I've numbered them in pencil on the back in the order of receipt as far as my wife can remember and with information about when and how each was delivered.'

'Thank you. That should be helpful. Your wife has played a great deal of Shakespeare?'