As he made his way down the main stairs of the building in which Roger Sheringham’s bachelor flat was situated, Anthony Walton smiled slowly to himself. The little holiday he had fixed up with Roger was going to be even more amusing than he had expected.
Although there were more than ten years between the cousins (Roger was now thirty-six, Anthony a bare twenty-five), they had always been good friends, and that also in spite of the fact that they had scarcely a taste or a feeling in common. It is often remarked, and even by people whom one would certainly expect to know better, that opposites make a happy marriage. Nothing could be more ludicrously untrue, but they do frequently make a happy male friendship. This one was a case in point.
Anthony, big, broad-shouldered, good-natured and slow-witted, had got his blue for rugger at Oxford, and now regularly left his father’s office, where he sat and amiably did nothing for the rest of the week, each Saturday morning to play for the Harlequins. It was his secret opinion that games were the only things that mattered in this world. In the matter of brains he was no match for the keen-witted if slightly volatile Roger, and his slow deliberation was in equal contrast with that gentleman’s dynamic energy; nor did he possess enough imagination to be impressed in the slightest degree by his cousin’s fame as a novelist with an already international reputation, though he did afford him a qualified respect as the owner of a half-blue for golf obtained at Oxford nearly fifteen years ago.
With his usual methodical care Anthony set about carrying out the string of orders which had been entrusted to him. Seven minutes before the train was due to leave he took up his position, tickets in hand, at the appointed spot on the vast surface of Waterloo Station. Punctually two minutes later Roger appeared and they passed through the barrier together, followed by a staggering porter with their combined traps. The train was not full, and an empty first-class smoker was obtained without difficulty.
“We’re going to enjoy ourselves on this little trip, Anthony, my son,” Roger remarked as the train began to move, settling himself comfortably in his corner and beginning to unfold a large wad of newspapers which he had brought with him. “Do you know that?”
“Are we?” Anthony said equably. “I shall enjoy watching you on the trail, certainly. It must be a strange sight.”
“Yes, and now I come to think of it, you’re by way of being rather indispensable there yourself, aren’t you?”
“Me? Why?”
“As the idiot friend,” Roger returned happily. “Must have an idiot friend with me, you know. All the best sleuths do.”
Anthony grunted and began somewhat ostentatiously to turn the pages of The Sportsman with which he had prudently armed himself. Roger applied himself to his bundle of papers. For half-an-hour or more no word was spoken. Then Roger, throwing aside the last newspaper from his batch, broke the silence.