“I like to see your righteous heat, James, but let me point out to you that dagos will be dagos. He meant well. You had saved his life, he bequeathed to you a profitable source of raising money⁠—your high-minded British ideals did not enter his horizon.”

“Well, what the hell was I to do with the things? Burn ’em, that’s what I thought at first. And then it occurred to me that there would be that poor dame, not knowing they’d be destroyed, and always living in a quake and a dread lest that dago should turn up again one day.”

“You’ve more imagination than I gave you credit for, Jimmy,” observed Anthony, lighting a cigarette. “I admit that the case presented more difficulties than were at first apparent. What about just sending them to her by post?”

“Like all women, she’d put no date and no address on most of the letters. There was a kind of address on one⁠—just one word. Chimneys.”