“You’ll make a rotten detective, Roger,” Alec grinned. “You gas too much. The best detectives are thin-lipped, hatchet-faced devils who creep about the place not saying a word to anybody.”
“In the story-books. You bet they don’t in real life. I expect they talk their heads off to their seconds-in-command. It’s so jolly helpful. Holmes must have missed an awful lot by not letting himself go to Watson. For one thing, the very act of talking helps one to clarify one’s own ideas and suggests further ones.”
“Your ideas ought to be pretty clear then,” said Alec rudely.
“And besides,” Roger went on unperturbed, “I’d bet anything that Watson was jolly useful to Holmes. Those absurd theories of the poor old chap’s that Holmes always ridiculed so mercilessly (I wish Watson had been allowed to hit on the truth just once; it would have pleased him so tremendously)—why, I shouldn’t be at all surprised if they didn’t suggest the right idea to Holmes time and time again; but of course, he would never have acknowledged it. Anyhow, the moral is, you talk away for all you’re worth and I’ll do the same. And if we don’t manage to find something out between us, you can write me down an ass. And yourself, too, Alexander!”
CHAPTER VII.
The Vase That Wasn’t
“Very well, Sherlock,” said Alec. “And what’s the first move?”
“The library,” Roger replied promptly, and rose to his feet.
Alec followed suit and they turned towards the house.
“What do you expect to find?” asked the latter curiously.
“I’m blessed if I know,” Roger confessed. “In fact, I can’t really say that I actually expect to find anything. I’ve got hopes, of course, but in no definite direction.”