“Well, what’s all that gin and stuff for, then?”
“To pour libations to the great and puissante Goddess of Bluff! Now then, Anthony, how many bedrooms would you like to sleep in to-night? One, two or three?”
Chapter VI.
An Unwelcome Clue
Inspector Moresby, it has been said, was a genial man. He had no hesitation in falling in with Roger’s suggestion that the three of them should sup together. Even a Scotland Yard detective is human, and Inspector Moresby very much preferred to spend his moments of leisure in the congenial company of his fellows than alone.
In the same way he had no hesitation in accepting a little gin before a meal. In yet once more the same way he had not the slightest hesitation in drinking some gin and ginger-beer with his supper because, as anyone knows, gin and ginger-beer with a lump of ice clinking invitingly against the glass is the greatest of all drinks on a hot day and has the Olympian nectar beaten to a standstill; thus far has civilisation progressed. And after a meal when, pleasantly tired and a pleasant hunger pleasantly allayed, one sprawls in a horsehair armchair and contemplates a case of stuffed birds, an iced whisky and soda by one’s side is almost a sine qua non. Inspector Moresby was a genial man.
Roger had behaved with exemplary tact. Not a word about their common mission to Ludmouth had passed his lips. Instead, he had set out to be as entertaining as he possibly could; and when Roger set out to be entertaining he could prove a very good companion indeed. He had recounted numberless anecdotes about the humours of his own early struggles and experiences, and the inspector had been amused; he had recounted further anecdotes of the great people he had met and knew, all of whom he called by their Christian names, and the inspector had been impressed; he had kept a judicious eye on his victim’s glass—or rather, succession of glasses, and the inspector had become mellowed. Roger loved the inspector, and the inspector loved Roger.
Roger chose his moment and struck.
“Look here, Inspector,” he said quite casually, “about this Mrs. Vane business, by the way. I wish you’d look on me not as a reporter but as an amateur criminologist, extraordinarily interested in the way the police go about the solving of a mystery like this and only too ready to put any small brains I may have at their assistance. I do happen to be writing this thing up for a newspaper, it’s true; but that’s only by the way. I’m not a reporter by instinct or profession or anything else, and I only jumped at the chance of becoming one because it would give me first-hand information about a very interesting little mystery. Do you see what I mean?”
The inspector’s eyes twinkled. “I think so, sir. You want me to take you into my confidence, don’t you?”
“Something like that,” Roger agreed. “And I must tell you that the balance won’t be entirely on your side. I’ve got something rather important to offer you—a clue I found this afternoon under your very nose down among those rocks. I don’t want to hold it up or anything like that; but candidly, I don’t want to give it away for nothing either. Can’t we arrange a swap, so to speak?”