At last he returned to England (having had a wonderful time, though he had utterly failed to screw an anna of salary out of the Kahn, who only appeared twice during the whole of his stay), to settle dimly into rather a dreary job in a rather dreary tutorial establishment, and life became very dull. Something seemed missing, that he did not know by the name of Romance. He seriously considered joining that great sect who write books about their experiences; he fancied he might write a book about India in his spare time — something very simple and natural like Hindoo Holiday!
And when he did go to the police they were simply no use at all. It was preposterous! They said they had no record of the Sheridan case. They weren’t even interested in his account of it. They seemed to think he was a crank or potty, Mr Jones was most annoyed. He became something of a bore on the subject.
In December, just before Christmas, he received a parcel forwarded from his College; the precise agreeable shape of a book. He noticed it had not come from the Oxford booksellers, but from a firm of publishers. Something he had ordered and forgotten about perhaps? Or an early Christmas present?
It was neither, strictly speaking. Or perhaps it was both.
Across its bold violet jacket was printed in crimson NO MOURNERS BY REQUEST! and scrawled under that, a huge white signature: ALVA HINE.
Mr Jones stared stupefied at this, and at the words underneath ‘Alva Hine’s 100th Crime Novel’! He was unable to make sense of anything — even the title. He turned the first pages gingerly, as if they might be contagious or contain some horrible surprise. The name Blanche Rose caught his eye, and here and there a phrase that seemed oddly familiar. And then he saw it!
Between the Title Page and the Table of Contents, printed alone on the page in bold black type he saw:
‘Dedicated without his permission
to the Patient Listener
who had
An Afternoon to Kill.’
And after a dizzying moment of bewilderment, Mr Jones began to laugh.
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An Afternoon to Kill Page 16