第72章

`Quite convinced?'

`I am, sir.That's the true line for us to take.'

The Assistant Commissioner withdrew the support of his hand from his reclining head with a suddenness that, considering his languid attitude, seemed to menace his whole person with collapse.But, on the contrary, he sat up, extremely alert, behind the great writing-table on which his hand had fallen with the sound of a sharp blow.

`What I want to know is what put it out of your head till now.'

`Put it out of my head,' repeated the Chief Inspector very slowly.'

`Yes.Till you were called into this room - you know.'

The Chief Inspector felt as if the air between his clothing and his skin bad become unpleasantly hot.It was the sensation of an unprecedented and incredible experience.

`Of course,' he said, exaggerating the deliberation of his utterance to the utmost limits of possibility, `if there is a reason, of which Iknow nothing, for not interfering with the convict Michaelis, perhaps it's just as well I didn't start the county police after him.'

This took such a long time to say that the unflagging attention of the Assistant Commissioner seemed a wonderful feat of endurance.His retort came without delay.

`No reason whatever that I know of.Come, Chief Inspector, this finessing with me is highly improper on your part - highly improper.And it's also unfair, you know.You shouldn't leave me to puzzle things out for myself like this.Really, I am surprised.'

He paused, then added smoothly: `I need scarcely tell you that this conversation is altogether unofficial.'

These words were far from pacifying the Chief Inspector.The indignation of a betrayed tight-rope performer was strong within him.In his pride of a trusted servant he was affected by the assurance that the rope was not shaken for the purpose of breaking his neck, as by an exhibition of impudence.As if anybody were afraid! Assistant Commissioners come and go, but a valuable Chief Inspector is not an ephemeral office phenomenon.

He was not afraid of getting a broken neck.To have his performance spoiled was more than enough to account for the glow of honest indignation.And as thought is no respecter of persons, the thought of Chief Inspector Heat took a threatening and prophetic shape.`You, my boy,' he said to himself, keeping his round and habitually roving eyes fastened upon the Assistant Commissioner's face - `you, my boy, you don't know your place, and your place won't know you very long either, I bet.'

As if in provoking answer to that thought, something like the ghost of an amiable smile passed on the lips of the Assistant Commissioner.His manner was easy and businesslike while he persisted in administering another shake to the tight-rope.

`Let us come now to what you have discovered on the spot, Chief Inspector,'

he said.

`A fool and his job are soon parted,' went on the train of prophetic thought in Chief Inspector Heat's head.But it was immediately followed by the reflection that a higher official, even when `fired out' (this was the precise image), has still the time as he flies through the door to launch a nasty kick at the shin-bones of a subordinate.Without softening very much the basilisk nature of his stare, he said, impassively:

`We are coming to that part of my investigation, sir.'

`That's right.Well, what have you brought away from it?'

The Chief Inspector, who had made up his mind to jump off the rope, came to the ground with gloomy frankness.

`I've brought away an address,' he said, pulling out of hiss pocket without haste a singed rag of dark blue cloth.`This belongs to the overcoat the fellow who got himself blown to pieces was wearing.Of course, the overcoat may not have been his, and may even have been stolen.But that's not at all probable if you look at this.'

The Chief Inspector, stepping up to the table, smoothed out carefully the rag of blue cloth.He had picked it up from the repulsive heap in the mortuary, because a tailor's name is found sometimes under the collar.

It is not often of much use, but still - He only half expected Co find anything useful, but certainly he did not expect to find - not under the collar at all, but stitched carefully on the under-side of the lapel -a square piece of calico with an address written on it in marking ink.

The Chief Inspector removed his smoothing hand.

`I carried it off with me without anybody taking notice,' he said.`Ithought it best.It can always be produced if required.'

The Assistant Commissioner, rising a little in his chair, pulled the cloth over to his side of the table.He sat looking at it in silence.Only the number 32 and the name of Brett Street were written in marking ink on a piece of calico slightly larger than an ordinary cigarette paper.

He was genuinely surprised.

`Can't understand why he should have gone about labelled like this,'

he said, looking up at Chief Inspector Heat.`It's a most extraordinary thing.'

`I met once in the smoking-room of a hotel an old gentleman who went about with his name and address sewn on in all his coats in case of an accident or sudden illness,' said the Chief Inspector.`He professed to be eighty-four years old, but he didn't look his age.He told me he was also afraid of losing his memory suddenly, like those people he had been reading of in the papers.

A question from the Assistant Commissioner, who wanted to know what was No.32 Brett Street, interrupted that reminiscence abruptly.The Chief Inspector, driven down to the ground by unfair artifices, had elected to walk the path of unreserved openness.If he believed firmly that to know too much was not good for the department, the judicious holding back of knowledge was as far as his loyalty dared to go for the good of the service.

If the Assistant Commissioner wanted to mismanage this affair nothing, of course, could prevent him.But, on his own part, he now saw no reason for a display of alacrity.So he answered concisely:

`It's a shop, sir.'