“No. I’ll go along and see a magistrate and get a warrant after supper, but I shan’t arrest him till to-morrow morning. There’s no hurry, and it’s more convenient in a little place like this. He can’t have taken alarm at your interview with him on Saturday, or he’d have cleared out before now, and I’ve already made sure he hasn’t done that.”
“But why trouble to traipse off to a magistrate and get a warrant?” Roger asked curiously. “I thought you didn’t need a warrant for an arrest on suspicion of murder.”
“But I’m not going to arrest him on suspicion of murder, sir.”
“You’re not?” Roger said in surprise. “Why not?”
“For several reasons,” the inspector returned non-committally. “For one thing it’s handier, when there are other reasons for arresting a man, not to do so on the murder charge. They’re more liable to give themselves away than if you’ve started off by frightening them to death already. We usually find it pays. And besides, it gives us an excuse for holding them when our murder evidence may not be quite complete.”
“I see. I’m learning things about our official criminologists.”
“We’re nasty people to get into the hands of, sir,” the inspector said jovially.
“You are indeed. I shall think quite seriously before committing my next murder. And you imagine you’ll be able to induce Meadows to give himself away?”
“We have our ways of making people talk,” observed the inspector darkly.
There was a short silence.