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hardly have dared buy it or take it out of the library for fear that someone would remember. But you’ve had your copy for years. A simple tool of the trade. No, Mr. Quilley, please don’t underestimate your contribution. I was a desperate man. Now you’ve given me a chance at freedom. If there’s anything at all I can do for you, please don’t hesitate to say. I’d consider it an honour.”
    â€œThis collection of yours,” Quilley said. “What does it consist of?”
    â€œBritish and Canadian crime fiction, mostly. I don’t like to boast, but it’s a very good collection. Try me. Go on, just mention a name.”
    â€œE. C. R. Lorac.”
    â€œAbout twenty of the Inspector MacDonalds. First editions, mint condition.”
    â€œAnne Hocking?”
    â€œEverything but Night’s Candles .”
    â€œTrotton?”
    Peplow raised his eyebrows. “Good Lord, that’s an obscure one. Do you know, you’re the first person I’ve come across who’s ever mentioned that.”
    â€œDo you have it?”
    â€œOh, yes.” Peplow smiled smugly. “X. J. Trotton, Signed in Blood , published 1942. It turned up in a pile of junk I bought at an auction some years ago. It’s rare, but not very valuable. Came out in Britain during the war and probably died an immediate death. It was his only book, as far as I can make out, and there is no biographical information. Perhaps it was a pseudonym for someone famous?”
    Quilley shook his head. “I’m afraid I don’t know. Have you read it?”
    â€œGood Lord, no! I don’t read them. It could damage the spines. Many of them are fragile. Anything I want to read—like your books—I also buy in paperback.”
    â€œMr. Peplow,” Quilley said slowly, “you asked if there was anything you could do for me. As a matter of fact, there is something you can give me for my ser­vices.”
    â€œYes?”
    â€œThe Trotton.”
    Peplow frowned and pursed his thin lips. “Why on earth . . . ?”
    â€œFor my own collection, of course. I’m especially interested in the war period.”
    Peplow smiled. “Ah! So that’s how you knew so much about them? I’d no idea you were a collector too.”
    Quilley shrugged modestly. He could see Peplow struggling, visualizing the gap in his collection. But finally the poor man decided that the murder of his wife was more important to him than an obscure mystery novel. “Very well,” he said gravely. “I’ll mail it to you.”
    â€œHow can I be sure . . . ?”
    Peplow looked offended. “I’m a man of my word, Mr. Quilley. A bargain is a bargain.” He held out his hand. “Gentleman’s agreement.”
    â€œAll right.” Quilley believed him. “You’ll be in touch when it’s done?”
    â€œYes. Perhaps a brief note in with the Trotton, if you can wait that long. Say two or three weeks?”
    â€œFine. I’m in no hurry.”
    Quilley hadn’t examined his motives since the first meeting, but he had realized, as he passed on the information and instructions, that it was the challenge he responded to more than anything else. For years he had been writing crime novels, and in providing Peplow with the means to kill his slatternly, overbearing wife, Quilley had derived some vicarious pleasure from the knowledge that he—Inspector Baldry’s creator—could bring off in real life what he had always been praised for doing in fiction.
    Quilley also knew that there were no real detectives who possessed Baldry’s curious mixture of intellect and instinct. Most of them were thick plodders, and they would never realize that dull Mr. Peplow had murdered his wife with a bunch of foxgloves, of all things. Nor would they ever know that the brains behind the whole affair had been none other than his, Dennis