Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 122, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 745 & 746, September/October 2003

Dick was happy, too. He knew he had landed on his feet. But always in Eden there lurked the serpent, in wait to spread his poison. Dick knew he was using Peggy — not sexually, because if anything, she was using him that way. But he knew he was getting a free childminder, lots of free meals, and he knew Peggy would be charging a lot more for the cottage if she was letting it on a weekly basis to her usual casual tourist clientele.

It irked him to be dependent — because that was what it was. It had been that that had started the rot between him and Selena. He was old-fashioned, he knew, but that was something he would never apologise for. He’d known when he planned to snatch Malcolm that his feelings for the boy were old-fashioned. And it was the same for his sense that he was becoming too dependent on Peggy.

The truth was, he could do with more money.

“It follows the pattern,” said Inspector Purley. “Retired people, away from home, poor security, a nice little haul of jewelry, cash, and small household things — nothing spectacular, but worth having. And it’s West Country.”

“What if the next one’s John o’ Groats?” asked Lackland. “That’s been the pattern so far — zigzagging all over the country.”

“Ah, but it won’t be from now on, you of little faith.”

“Seems to me you’re looking at it arse up,” countered Lackland. “You decided he was headed for the West Country, and now we’ve got a possible case there, you take it as confirmation, even though we’ve had other possible cases all over the country. Dick Randall’s not the only crook to target respectable retired people.”

He did not dent his superior officer’s complacent view of things.

“You mark my words,” Purley said. “He’s come to rest in the West Country, like all sorts of other people — artists, retired people, ageing hippies, travelling people, and all manner of rag-tag and bobtail. And having come to rest, he can’t leave little Malcolm alone for long. The cases we think he was involved in were all over the country because so were they. Now the cases will all be in the West.” He walked over and looked at a map on the wall. “This one was in a small village called Monpellon. The area includes Launceston, Bodmin, Padstow — places like that. That’s where we’ll be looking to, because that’s where the two of them will have slung their hook.”

“Well, I admire your confidence,” said Lackland, who secretly, or not so secretly, did not.

“I’m so certain I’m right that I’ll risk ridicule if he does turn up in John o’ Groats and I’ll alert the local police down there that I think that’s where he is. One more strike and he may have given himself away.”

Dick was his usual efficient and sympathetic self at lunchtime in The Cornishman, pulling pints now with the sure hand of an expert, bringing three or four laden plates at once from the kitchen into the bar and remembering who had ordered what. But at the back of his mind there was a niggling worry.

Peggy had not been quite her normal self when he had delivered Malcolm that morning, not quite the same in her manner. There hadn’t been anything that you could pin down: You couldn’t say she’d got the huff, decided she’d gone off him, was feeling she was being exploited. She was minding three or four other toddlers now — children whose mothers had got summer jobs when the holiday season had come upon them. The arrival of one of them at the door had covered over any awkwardness, but also prevented any attempt to sort things out. Dick was sure there was something: an alteration in her manner, a slight access of remoteness, even coldness.

“One chicken and chips, one roast pork, one steak-and-kidney pie, and one vegetable bake.” He had a cheerful air as he served one of the families who had once been regulars of Peggy’s, but had been found an alternative cottage this season. They were a fleshy, forceful family, and they took up their knives and forks with enthusiasm.

“Can hear you’re from the North, too,” said the wife, smiling at him in a friendly fashion.

“Me father was,” said Dick. “Or should I say ‘wor’? I can do the accent, and a bit of it has rubbed off onto me. But I come from Cambridge — and all round. I’m a bit of a rolling stone.”

“Can’t be too much of a rolling stone, now you’ve got little Malcolm to consider,” said the husband. “Champion little lad, that. We saw him when we dropped by to say hello to Peggy.”

“Champion’s the word for him,” said Dick. “I call him ‘Captain.’ Can’t remember how that started, but I certainly have to jump when he gives me orders!”

“Colin — two hamburgers and chips on the bar,” called Jack, and Dick resumed his service of the crowded and cheerful bar. He didn’t like it when people commented on his very slight Northern accent. He’d told Peggy early on that he came from Cambridge, and that was a lie he was now stuck with.