In this way the time passed pleasantly till they returned to their inn. An impartial spectator would probably have given it as his opinion by that time that the honours were even, with, if anything, a slight bias in favour of the inspector. Roger retired to telephone his report through to London, stretching his meagre amount of straw into as many bricks as possible, and the inspector disappeared altogether, presumably to chew over the cud of his mission. Anthony was not in the inn at all.
Returning from the telephone, Roger looked into the little bar-parlour; three yokels and a dog were there. He looked into their private sitting-room; nobody was there. He looked into each of their bedrooms; nobody was there either. Then he took up his station outside Inspector Moresby’s bedroom, laid back his head, and proceeded to give a creditable imitation of a bloodhound baying the moon. The effect was almost instantaneous.
“Good Heavens!” exclaimed the startled inspector, emerging precipitately in his shirt-sleeves. “Was—was that you, Mr. Sheringham?”
“It was,” said Roger, pleased. “Did you like it?”
“I did not,” replied the inspector with decision. “Are you often taken that way, sir?”
“Only when I’m feeling very chatty, and nobody will talk to me or occasionally when I’ve been trying to thought-read, and nobody will tell me whether I’m right or wrong. Otherwise, hardly at all.”
The inspector laughed. “Very well, sir. I guess I have been trying your patience a bit. But now you’ve got that telephone business done with, perhaps we might have a chat.”
“Distrustful lot of men, the police,” Roger murmured. “Disgustingly. Well, what about a visit to the sitting-room? That bottle of whisky isn’t nearly finished, you know.”
“I’ll be with you in half-a-minute, sir,” said the inspector quite briskly.
Roger went on ahead and mixed two drinks, one stiff, one so stiff as to be almost rigid. The inspector, smacking his lips over the latter two minutes later, remarked regretfully that that was good stuff for nowadays, that was, but it was a pity they filled the bottles half up with water in these times before the stuff ever got into a glass at all. It is a hard business, trying to loosen a Scotland Yard Inspector’s tongue.