Chapter 3: The Murder at Threadneedle Street

The morning paper arrived before I had finished my first cup of tea, and the headline killed my appetite for the second.

BANKER FOUND DEAD IN CITY OFFICE. THREADNEEDLE STREET IN CONSTERNATION.

The details were sparse, as they always are when a paper goes to press before the facts have settled — a Mr. Philip Forsythe, senior partner of Forsythe and Alcott, private banking concern, discovered by his clerk at half past seven that morning, the office locked from the inside, no sign of forced entry. The reporter, who had clearly arrived before the police had finished with the scene and stayed precisely long enough to be unhelpful, described the death as occurring under circumstances of some peculiarity and left it at that.