The Punch and Judy Murders

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The next document, at 2.10, showed a broader epistolatory style. It had evidently been telephoned white-hot by the old man, without regard for economy or coherence:

Any philosophical soul, on the eve of his wedding, must suspect that some damned thing or other will go wrong. It is bound to. That is the cussedness of all human affairs. And I had learned that it was particularly the case in anything which concerned Evelyn Cheyne and myself. Thus, on that hot, murky June afternoon while I sat in my flat taking sustenance out of a tall glass and studying this telegram, it appeared that — for some reason unknown, less than twenty-four hours before the wedding — I was supposed to go to Torquay and be a butler.

It was just a little over a year after that wild business at the Chateau de I'Ile in France, which has since become known as the Unicorn Murders. Evelyn Cheyne and I were going to make a match of it: the only wonder may be why we had waited so long. It had been no fault of ours. The reason was the same reason why both of us were uneasy about this wedding — Evelyn's parents.

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