I typed this on an old Remington I bought at a boot sale. Sharp, trained, and observant as you are, you’ll have noticed the ‘T’ is faulty.
Brown hadn’t.
This is not a clue, simply a faulty consonant. The paper I bought in Ryman’s, like a million other customers (or so they’d like us to believe).
Fingerprints?
Alas, no. The old surgical gloves.
DNA?
On the stamp… or the flap of the envelope… again no. I used tap water.
I have provided one clue. Fair is fair, as we English tell the Iraqis. No, silly, not my nationality. Do focus, that’s not the clue.
Porter suppressed a smile.
The clue is the nom de plume. As the current idiom has it… ‘Wanna play?’ I think a recent novel by P.J. Taylor used that as a title.
I digress.
Good will hunting.
Yours predatorily, FORD.
Brown removed the pince-nez, literally flung the letter at Porter, and said:
‘Get on it.’
‘Am… sir.’
The brusqueness was deliberate. Porter, not touching the letter, asked:
‘Is it right, no fingerprints?’
Brown was close to a coronary, roared:
‘Course there’re bloody prints; the postman, my secretary, mine, and probably a hundred others, but usable ones?’
He banged his desk, asked: ‘What type of moron do you take me for?’ There wasn’t a civil answer to this.
Porter had gone to the pub and met Trevor, ending the day on a high note.
… but now I just listened-not liking it… but accepting the confessions as an unwelcome part of the deal I had made with myself.