Time to Go Home

It is a Crime Story Book and all Royalties will go to charity; Lucian Thrawle sealed up his letter and put it in Miss Winnicott's typewriter: thanks and good-bye. The money - her salary made up to the year's end - was already in the post. It was unlikely that his news would take Miss Winnicott by surprise. She was an observant women. In the six years she had spent in this office, she could hardly have failed to notice the unusual elements in Thrawle's business, irregularities he had always been quick to spare her - "Leave it to me. Miss Winnicott. I think I'll telephone. We don't need to commit this to paper." She would, he knew, deal very sensibly with the Inland Revenue people on Monday morning. His letter made her free to show them the accounts, the files, the tapes, tell them everything she knew. What she would have to disclose didn't amount to very much, and she would be as surprised as they to find so much money in the safe. He went into the lavatory and reached down his suitcase from the trapdoor in the ceiling. Wrapped in stout polythene against the damp, the case contained everything he needed to take with him. No need now for him to go home.