The fire in the dim mildewed office was burning smokily, and a sickly daylight filtered its way through the sooty windows facing across the cobbles to Whitehall Place. Mackharness thought: I was too short-tempered with him the other day. Mildred says I’m becoming ‘testy’. Maybe she’s right. I must stop snarling at him the way I do. It’s not his fault that he gets me on edge. Box finished his account of his investigation in Cornwall, and waited for his superior to comment. His eyes strayed, as always, to the cluttered mantelpiece, with its moth-eaten fringe of bobbled green velvet The picture, the sea-shell, the glass paper weight, the medal…. One day, he’d find out about that medal. He saw Mackharness watching him, and dropped his eyes. ‘Now, Box,’ said Mackharness, ‘let me make a few comments about these recent cases. You’ve clearly established that there’s a common factor in these murders – the Courteline murder, in which I include the silencing of Joseph Kitely, the murder of Gabriel Oldfield, and the killing of this young man William Pascoe.
