fortnight.” He ceased to think completely for a time. That utter
stillness of his brain lasted about three seconds. Then he said
perfunctorily: “You have set inquiries on foot for tracing that
other man up and down the line?”
He had no doubt that everything needful had been done. Chief
Inspector Heat knew, of course, thoroughly the business of man-
hunting. And these were the routine steps, too, that would be
taken as a matter of course by the merest beginner. A few
inquiries amongst the ticket collectors and the porters of the two
small railway stations would give additional details as to the
appearance of the two men; the inspection of the collected tickets
would show at once where they came from that morning. It was
elementary, and could not have been neglected. Accordingly the
Chief Inspector answered that all this had been done directly the
old woman had come forward with her deposition. And he mentioned
the name of a station. “That’s where they came from, sir,” he went
on. “The porter who took the tickets at Maze Hill remembers two
chaps answering to the description passing the barrier. They
seemed to him two respectable working men of a superior sort – sign
painters or house decorators. The big man got out of a third-class
compartment backward, with a bright tin can in his hand. On the
platform he gave it to carry to the fair young fellow who followed
him. All this agrees exactly with what the old woman told the
police sergeant in Greenwich.”
The Assistant Commissioner, still with his face turned to the
window, expressed his doubt as to these two men having had anything
to do with the outrage. All this theory rested upon the utterances
of an old charwoman who had been nearly knocked down by a man in a
hurry. Not a very substantial authority indeed, unless on the
ground of sudden inspiration, which was hardly tenable.
“Frankly now, could she have been really inspired?” he queried,
with grave irony, keeping his back to the room, as if entranced by
the contemplation of the town’s colossal forms half lost in the
night. He did not even look round when he heard the mutter of the
word “Providential” from the principal subordinate of his
department, whose name, printed sometimes in the papers, was
familiar to the great public as that of one of its zealous and
hard-working protectors. Chief Inspector Heat raised his voice a
little.
“Strips and bits of bright tin were quite visible to me,” he said.
“That’s a pretty good corroboration.”
“And these men came from that little country station,” the
Assistant Commissioner mused aloud, wondering. He was told that
such was the name on two tickets out of three given up out of that
train at Maze Hill. The third person who got out was a hawker from
Gravesend well known to the porters. The Chief Inspector imparted
that information in a tone of finality with some ill humour, as
loyal servants will do in the consciousness of their fidelity and
with the sense of the value of their loyal exertions. And still
the Assistant Commissioner did not turn away from the darkness
outside, as vast as a sea.
“Two foreign anarchists coming from that place,” he said,
apparently to the window-pane. “It’s rather unaccountable.”‘
“Yes, sir. But it would be still more unaccountable if that
Michaelis weren’t staying in a cottage in the neighbourhood.”
At the sound of that name, falling unexpectedly into this annoying
affair, the Assistant Commissioner dismissed brusquely the vague
remembrance of his daily whist party at his club. It was the most
comforting habit of his life, in a mainly successful display of his
skill without the assistance of any subordinate. He entered his
club to play from five to seven, before going home to dinner,
forgetting for those two hours whatever was distasteful in his
life, as though the game were a beneficent drug for allaying the
pangs of moral discontent. His partners were the gloomily humorous
editor of a celebrated magazine; a silent, elderly barrister with
malicious little eyes; and a highly martial, simple-minded old
Colonel with nervous brown hands. They were his club acquaintances