Presendy his sense of humor struggled into being again. A grin appeared under his clipped gray moustache, and he fell to whistling as he sorted out his morning's mail. He also reflected, in as sentimental a fashion as his nature would permit, on his thirty-five years in the Force; on all the villainy and nonsense he had seen in this little bare room, with its brown distempered walls and windows that overlooked the sedate Embankment. Each morning he placidly shaved himself in East Croydon, kissed his wife, cast a troubled eye over the newspaper (which always hinted at sinister things, either from Germany or the climate) as the train bore him to Victoria; and took up afresh his duties in murders or lost dogs. Around him was the ordered hum of this clearing-house for both. Around him—.
"Come in," he said, in reply to a knock at the door.
A constable, obviously perturbed, coughed.
There's a gentleman here, sir," he observed, rather in the manner of one making a deduction. There's a gentleman here." He laid a card on Hadley's desk.
"Urn" said the Chief Inspector, who was reading a report. "What's he want?"
"I think you had better see him, sir."
Hadley glanced at the card, which said:
Dr. Sigismund Von Hornswoggle Vienna
"I think you'd better see him" the other insisted. "He's making a row, sir, and psychoanalyzing everybody he can lay hold of. Sergeant Betts has hidden himself in the record room, and swears he won't come out until somebody takes the gentleman away."
"Look here," said the exasperated Hadley, and creaked round in his swivel-chair. "Is everybody trying to play a game on me this morning? What the hell do you mean, making a row? Why don't you chuck him out?"