Means Of Evil And Other Stories by Ruth Rendell Page B

wheeling."
   In vain they searched the lane, the ditches and the copse which bordered the lane on one side. They didn't find the safe and no fingerprints were found on the window ledges or in the study at Baron's Keep. The thieves had worn gloves.
   "And Big Feet," said Burden in the morning, "should have worn snow shoes. There aren't going to be many villains about with great plates of meat like that."
   "I'd think of Lofty Peters first thing," said Wexford, "only he's inside."
   "Well, he's not actually. He came out last week. But we were round at his place, knocking him up at midnight and waking all the neighbours, and there was no doubt where he'd been all evening. He was blind drunk, smashed out of his mind. I reckon this lot came down from London. Old Pollard's been shooting his mouth off around the City about his missus's diamonds and this is the outcome."
   "The van was nicked," said Wexford. "I've just had a call from the super at Myringham. They found it ditched on the edge of a wood with the licence plates missing."
   "What a lively time we are having," said Burden, and he looked out of the window at the geraniums on the forecourt and the shops opening, striped awnings gradually being unfurled, shoppers' cars moving in, the July sun spreading a great sheet of light and warmth across the Pomfret Road——and a little figure walking through it in unseasonable black. "My God," he said, "I don't believe it, not another one!"
   Wexford got up and came over to the window. The small stout man in the black cassock was now on the forecourt, walking between the geranium tubs. In his arms was a bundle that was undoubtedly a baby. He was carrying the baby very confidently and securely as might be expected in one who so often performed the sacrament of baptism. Wexford watched him in silence, craning out to follow the priest's progress under the overhanging canopy and through the swing doors into the police station.
   He said in a distant speculative voice, "You don't suppose, do you, Mike, that this is the latest craze? I mean, we've had wife-swapping, are we going to have baby-swapping? Maybe it's something that bored young housewives are going to take up instead of going to evening classes or playing with their deep freezes."
   "Or maybe there's a maniac on the rampage who gets his kicks from changing them all round and confusing their mums."
   "Musical babes," said Wexford. "Come on, let's go down and see." They descended to the foyer in the lift. "Good morning, Father. And who might this be?"
   The priest in charge of the Catholic church of Our Lady of Loretto was leaning against the long parabola-shaped counter behind which the station sergeant, Sergeant Camb, presided. The sleeping baby in his arms was swathed, indeed tightly cocooned, in a clean pale blue cellular blanket. Only its face, fragile yet healthy-looking, and one hand were exposed. Thick dark lashes rested on the rose-leaf skin, but otherwise the child was fair, eyebrow-less and with fine downy hair as bright as a new copper coin. Holding it with tender firmness, Father Glanville looked round from his conversation with the sergeant to give Wexford a mystified grin, while Polly Davies stroked the baby's tiny fingers with her own forefinger.
   "Your guess is as good as mine, Mr. Wexford. I went over to the church just before nine and when I came back this little one was on the front steps of the presbytery. My lady help, Mrs. Bream, had come in by the back door and hadn't even noticed him."
   "You found him just like that?" said Wexford. "Just wrapped in that blanket and lying on the doorstep."
   "No indeed. He was wrapped in this blanket inside a cardboard box. The cardboard box," said Father Glanville, smiling, "is of the kind one sees in grocery supermarkets. This particular one has printed on it: Smith's Ready Salted Crisps, Ten Family Packs." He added rather anxiously, "I'm afraid I haven't brought it with me."