But don't stop; keep on going."
"H'm. So. All right; follow Ken's adventures from there on. They're illustrations in themselves of the truth. He goes to the railway station in Moreton Abbot — and bumps into Serpos.
"Now we can see what Serpos did. Serpos didn't consult Hogenauer: he relied on his own knowledge of money that a good two-thirds of that stuff was real. Of course, he could have said to Charters: `Here! You've given out to everybody that it's all counterfeit, and you know better; so let me have my share or I'll blow the gaff.' But this didn't satisfy good old Serpos, it didn't. He wanted it all. And, d'ye see, the beauty of his scheme was that he thought it was perfectly safe. First, he rather doubted whether Charters would have the nerve to set the coppers on him. Second, even if Charters did do it, and in the unlikely event that they caught up to him-well, he was still safe, for he could whisper to Charters: `You don't dare prosecute me, or I'll tell the truth about that money.' So he laid his plans, and he scooted: takin' all the money, good and bad, because it was done into packets of each together, and he didn't have time to separate the sheep from the goats.
"But, wow! Gents, it must have been an awful shock when, on the station platform at Moreton Abbot, he suddenly found a constable (in the person of Ken) bearin' down on him, and voices in the crowd shoutin' out to stop the man who had robbed the Chief Constable. Ken, of course, had built up on the figure of Serpos this dummy-and-phantom to shield himself in his role as the Compleat Constable; but it really was Serpos, the man who had robbed the Chief Constable!
"Serpos is a pretty temperamental feller, y'know. He collapsed. But he didn't collapse for many minutes. They'd caught him: but he saw his chance. He begged in weepin' humility to be carried back and take his medicine; he was penitent, he was goaded by conscience; and all the time there was twistin' about at the back of his eye a shrewd little gleam, 'Charters'll never dare. Let me get a chance to talk to Charters, and he'll never dare. I'll get some of that money yet.' That was Change Number One.
"Change Number Two occurred about two minutes later, when he suddenly discovered Ken was no more a policeman than he himself was a clergyman. And Serpos changed pretty quick then. He changed, and he got nasty, and he wouldn't give up what he had been so ready and eager to yield a minute before. Because, you see, be thought Ken must be-,'
"A member of the Willoughby gang," supplied Evelyn.
"Uh-huh. That circumstance should also 'a' told you that Serpos hadn't found out he was stealing counterfeit money.' Oooh, no, my lads. He knew jolly well what he was carrying, as he'd known all along.
"Ken very thoughtfully shoved him into a lavatory, and the next stage of the adventures began. Whack! Straightaway Ken meets a feller," H.M.'s hand appeared past my shoulder and tapped Stone, "who presents tolerably good credentials and tells you L. is dead. But did you doubt Charters's story even then? No. What proof had there ever been, ask again, that Hogenauer ever made a proposition to betray L.? Charters's statement: that's all. Was it made to anyone else? No. Did it sound inherently probable in itself? No. Was there direct evidence that it couldn't have been made? Yes. But it didn't make you suspicious of Charters; it only made you suspicious of Stone.
"By the time you d had your skylarkin' at the Cabot Hotel, and learned the truth about the light-cuff-links-missing-books affair, I was beginnin' to get more than a glimmering of the truth about it myself. And, by the time Ken 'phoned in his second report, I had the whole thing arranged in reasonable order. So far, I'd taken a devilish lot of whacks. I was the clown in the Punch and Judy show: every time I stuck my head up over the stairs, somebody batted it with a club. And the audience roared with mirth. But, remember, my lads: it's only the Clown that survives the Punch and Judy show. I'm used to that. Nobody appreciates me. Bah.