the theft of Chigwell's medical notebooks

The theft of Chigwell's medical notebooks is reported as a break-in at Florence Chigwell's home, but the missing papers are only Curtis Chigwell's copies: Florence has secretly preserved the originals in her father's diaries. The distinction changes the apparent loss into a dangerous lead. She suspects Curtis was involved, and the notebooks may explain what he had not disclosed about the Xerxes plant.

The report and its circumstances

Florence contacts V. I. Warshawski after Warshawski has endured a terrible ordeal of her own. She acknowledges the imposition, but chooses an investigator over the police, judging Warshawski the more appropriate person to approach. The call is not a detached report: Florence is trying to explain why the missing papers matter while Warshawski, still sore between the shoulders, rests on a couch.

The household circumstances make the suspected intruder both familiar and uncertain. Curtis lives with Florence, but after she took him to the hospital on Tuesday and he was released on Wednesday, he said he would stay with friends. He was embarrassed and did not want to face her at breakfast; Florence admits that she, too, was glad to have him gone for a few days. His absence does not establish that he broke in, but it gives her a reason to suspect him when she returns home.

Friday is Florence's day volunteering at the hospital with elderly women. When she comes back, she recognizes that someone has entered the house. She does not call the police or wait with a friend for them to arrive. Instead, she reasons that Curtis must have been responsible, or that he let in someone who did not know the house well enough to avoid making a disturbance. Her account leaves open which possibility is true; it does not confirm who entered.

What was taken—and what remained

Warshawski first asks whether valuables are missing. Florence's answer redirects the inquiry: the loss is not ordinary property but Curtis's medical notebooks. She had hidden them after he tried to burn them. The attempted destruction gives the missing copies a history before the break-in and makes their disappearance part of a continuing dispute over the records.

Florence then clarifies that the originals are safe. What has disappeared is only Curtis's set of copies, made from notes that she had typed for him over the years. Her concealment of the originals means the apparent theft has not erased the underlying record. It also means Curtis did not know that Florence had retained the notebooks, a fact she had never told him.

The originals are in the old leather diaries belonging to Florence's father, custom-bound for him in London. Their location joins a practical act of safekeeping to a private family memory: Florence could not bring herself to discard the diaries, yet feared Curtis would be angry if he thought she kept them as a memorial to her father. She hid the originals rather than explain that choice to him. The surviving records therefore depend on a secret that predates the break-in.

The Xerxes connection

Florence believes Curtis's notebooks may contain information about what he was involved in at the Xerxes plant—something he had not wanted to tell Warshawski. This is her reason for calling an investigator rather than treating the intrusion simply as a police matter. The notebooks' value lies in what they might reveal about Curtis's connection to the plant, not in their status as unique documents, since the originals remain in her possession.

The sequence also changes the meaning of Curtis's earlier attempt to burn his records. The source establishes that he tried to burn the notebooks and that Florence subsequently hid them, but it does not establish why he wanted them destroyed or whether he took the missing copies himself. Suspicion, prior concealment, and the possible Xerxes information converge without resolving the identity of the intruder. Florence's call opens a line of inquiry rather than supplying its answer.

Warshawski's response

Warshawski's immediate reaction marks the report as more than a domestic disturbance. She has been lying down to ease the soreness between her shoulders; when Florence identifies Curtis as the suspected intruder, Warshawski sits up. A note from Kappelman, who is arranging permission for her outing with Mr. Contreras, briefly occupies the scene, but she listens to Florence and agrees to go to the house within the hour.

As the possible significance of the notebooks becomes clear, Warshawski feels an involuntary prickling at the base of her neck, the bodily jolt she associates with nearing danger. The episode moves from an uncertain report of a break-in to a possible connection with concealed information about Xerxes. It ends not with the notebooks recovered or the suspect identified, but with Warshawski committing to investigate while Florence's originals remain hidden in the diaries.