vault is not the original manuscript. He visits John Widdowson's flat with Ritchie, looks around, questions the maid, and leaves a note for Widdowson enclosing a page from the facsimile manuscript. Widdowson calls him later, agrees that the manuscript he found was a facsimile, but that the original is safe in one of the firm's other offices, telling him to confirm the fact by opening a certain locked cupboard. Campion goes there, still weary from a lack of sleep, and almost hurls himself at the jammed door to force it open. Becoming suspicious, he kicks it instead, and discovers it leads outside to a terrible drop. He realizes that he too was to be killed by Widdowson for the same reason he killed Brande, to prevent exposure that the play, which is the company's financial asset, is not an original. During the court proceedings against Mike on the next day, the case is suddenly called off. Widdowson has been found in his bath, an apparent suicide caused by carbon monoxide fumes from a gas water-heater. Campion learns that the windows had been were wedged shut from the outside, that the heater had been manipulated, and that Ritchie has vanished. Later, holidaying in France with Mike, Campion finds the long lost Tom Barnabas, alias Pierre Robert, who tells him that instead of his legacy he had taken the original manuscript to buy a circus, in which Campion sees Ritchie performing, now finally in his element as a clown. Campion realizes that Ritchie's quietly avenging the murder of Paul by killing Widdowson gave him the role of "the king's executioner." Characters in Flowers for the Judge John Widdowson, head of the Barnabas publishing company, and nephew of the founder Paul Brande, another Barnabas nephew, also employed by the company Gina Brande, Paul's attractive but neglected American wife Mrs Austin, their maid, a kindly but tactless woman Mike Wedgwood, the youngest of the nephews, a junior partner in the firm Albert Campion, an old friend of Mike, an adventurer, detective and universal uncle Magersfontein Lugg, Campion's manservant, a temperamental ex-burglar Ritchie Barnabas, an apparently simple nephew employed in minor duties, a long-armed man Tom Barnabas, the long-missing brother of Ritchie, thought to have vanished into thin air Miss Florence Curley, an efficient lady, long employed by the Barnabases Peter Rigget, an accountant with the firm, a stocky and sneaky man Mr Scruby, the