Episode Eight – "A Visit for the Postman"
 

Sir Graham : Excuse me, Temple, there is a telephone call for you.

Dennis Brent : They didn’t reverse the charges did they?

Temple : Did they say who it was?

Sir Graham : No – Constable Cliffhanger is holding the line. You’d better hurry.

Temple : I will.

Constable : Mr Temple is here now, sir. Here you go Mr Temple.

Temple : Hello? This is Paul Temple speaking.

Voice : Temple? This is your only warning. Stop investigating the Dennis Affair or your lives will be in danger.

Temple : Who is this?

Voice : My name? Just call me… Alan.

Temple : Hello? Hello? By Timothy he’s rung off.

Sir Graham : Was it Alan?

Steve : The man who was blackmailing Dennis Brent and murdered his brother Donald Brent in Dennis Brent’s house for reason or reasons unknown? And who recently telephoned Paul Temple and warned him not to get involved in the Dennis Affair?

Temple : It was.

Sir Graham : Did you recognise the voice?

Temple : I’m afraid not.

Sir Graham : Constable Convenient tells me that he may have a lead. It seems the local postman is well known for sifting through the mail and keeping anything that takes his fancy. If Alan sends letters to his victims then there may be a clue amongst his archive.

Temple : By Timothy that’s a stroke of luck!

(time passes)

Temple : May we have a quick word, Mr..?

Postie : Cunthleigh.

Temple : Mr Cunthleigh. I understand you are the local postman and may have delivered several blackmail messages from Alan.

Cunthleigh : Oh yes – I have a special folder for messages from Alan. I like to show them to people at dinner parties.

Temple : You show them to people?

Cunthleigh : You miss understand – I’d like to show them to people at dinner parties. Alas I cannot afford to own more than two plates at a time so socialising on any kind of scale is an improbability.

Temple : Could you show them to me now?

Cunthleigh : Well yes but aren’t you more interested in the letters than my dinner plates?

Temple : I was referring to the letters.

Cunthleigh : That kind of imprecision is why you are not a postman. We cannot afford to be vague – lives could be lost. Here you are – my Alan folder.

Temple : These letters are damp.

Cunthleigh : I have literally no idea how that could’ve happened.

Temple : Are you lying?

Cunthleigh : Yes. But I refuse to say any more.

Temple : Fortunately they are still readable. By Timothy, Alan is a clever man.

Sir Graham : What makes you say that, Temple?

Temple : You remember the Oswald Case?

Sir Graham : I do indeed – you identified the murderer by matching notes sent to his victims to his typewriter.

Temple : I did indeed, Sir Graham. Well, Alan is obviously smarter than Mr Greg Baxter – Alan uses different typewriters each time he writes one of his notes.

Cunthleigh : I think it’s more likely to be word processors these days. He probably nips to Computer Market and prints them off there. That’s what I do when I send threatening letters.

Temple : You send threatening letters?

Cunthleigh : In these days of e-mail and mobile telephones we postmen have to do whatever we can to keep the volume of mail up. Any sexual gratification we get is entirely coincidental.

Temple : Are you Alan, Mr Cunthleigh?

Cunthleigh : Certainly not. It would be rather foolish of me to write blackmail letters and then not deliver them, wouldn’t it?

Temple : I take your point! Mr Cunthleigh, you have presumably seen a lot of correspondence in Bendaton – do you recognise the style of Alan’s letters?

Cunthleigh : You mean have I worked out who Alan is based on my having seen practically every letter sent or received by the people of the village?

Steve : Detailed recapping is my job, Mr Cunthleigh!

Cunthleigh : My apologies, Mrs Temple. The answer is that I am not sure.

Temple : Go on.

Cunthleigh : I’m a professional postman, as you know, and the training required to push letters through slots left me little time to get an education. But my studies of various psychoanalytical texts suggests that Alan may be a schizophrenic.

Temple : A what?

Cunthleigh : Someone with more than one personality battling for control of his psyche.

Temple : Ah – you mean a lunatic.

Cunthleigh : Possibly, possibly. There are some occasions when I recognise the style of his letters and other times when I don’t. I did try charting the relationship between the date of the letters and the position of the moon but I ran out of ink half way through my graph and I quickly lost interest.

Temple : If you had to name one person in Bendaton that you suspected of being Alan, who would it be?

Cunthleigh : That’s a difficult question, Mr Temple.

(zipping sound)

Temple : What are you doing?

Cunthleigh : I think more clearly while masturbating. I hope you don’t mind.

Temple : Steve, I think you should go and look at the flowers in Mr Cunthleigh’s garden.

Steve : I think I should!

Cunthleigh : Ugahhaheyyyheee. That’s better. I think Alan is Mr Wicks – the queer fellow who lives with Mr Grantham.

Temple : Wicks? Are you sure?

Cunthleigh : I could have another go to be absolutely sure?

Temple : Please don’t. You have only a few flowers in your garden so my wife may return at any moment.

Cunthleigh : Please yourself. But Wicks is your man. See – the small stain on the carpet sort of looks like a W.

Temple : Thank you, Mr Cunthleigh, you’ve been of some help to us.

Sir Graham : What a disgusting fellow!

Temple : I went to a boys boarding school, Sir Graham, so nothing of that sort can surprise me!

Steve : Oh Paul!

(jolly laughter)

Temple : But his mention of Mr Wicks is interesting.

Sir Graham : Do you suspect Wicks?

Temple : On the contrary, Sir Graham, I have just remembered who the phone call from Alan reminded me of. The voice was that of Mr Wicks’ friend Grantham.

Constable : Excuse me sir.

Sir Graham : Yes, Cliffhanger?

Constable : I have a note from Mr Devine.

Sir Graham : Good lord, Temple, look at this.

Temple : Dear Mr Temple, I have just realised that the voice on the telephone in the restaurant was familiar.

Steve : Go on, Paul.