In thirty years I shall be nearly ten years older than you are now, and you’ll still be trying to bully me. Do you remember how I found out your real age on your thirty-fifth birthday? My first really good bit of investigation, nasty little tick that I was. Well, little mum, don’t flirt with the vicar, and be sure to have the red carpet out on the 7th.
Your dutiful and devoted son,
Roderick.
PS. — Miss Troy has done a sketch of your son which he will purchase for your birthday if it’s not too expensive.
From Lady Alleyn, Danes Lodge, Bossicote, to Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn, Chateau Frontenac, Quebec.
Dear Roderick,
Your ingenuous little letter reached me on my birthday, and I was delighted to receive it. Thank you, my dear. It will be a great joy to have you for nearly a fortnight, greedily to myself. I trust I am not one of those avaricious mammas — clutch, clutch, clutch — which, after all, is only a form of cluck, cluck, cluck.
It will be delightful to have a Troy version of you, and I hope it was not too expensive — if it was, perhaps you would let me join you, my dear. I should like to do that, but have no doubt you will ruin yourself and lie to your mother about the price. I shall call on Miss Troy, not only because you obviously wish me to do so, but because I have always liked her work, and should be pleased to meet her, as your Van Maes would say. George is with his family in Scotland. He talks of standing for Parliament, but I am afraid he will only make a fool of himself, poor dear.