“Um, yes!” The inspector stroked his chin thoughtfully. “Do you think you would recognize Thompson in the street, Mr. Anthony?”
“Should think I was a blithering idiot if I didn't,” Anthony responded. “Never saw him with a hat on certainly, but a hat don't matter—it can't alter a man beyond recognition.”
“Not much of a disguise, certainly,” the inspector admitted, looking round him consideringly as they entered Carlsford Square. “Still, I wonder——”
Anthony came to a standstill.
“Now I wonder what you are getting at. Do you think I have seen Thompson anywhere?”
The inspector did not answer for a minute, then he said slowly:
“I shouldn't be surprised if a good many of us had seen him, Mr. Anthony.”
Anthony stared. “Then we must be a set of fools.”
“A good many of us are fools,” Inspector Furnival acquiesced as they came to a standstill.
Anthony applied himself to the knocker on the door of the Bechcombes' house. There were a couple of cars in the street, one John Steadman's, the other a luxurious Daimler evidently fitted with the latest improvements.