We strolled along the intermittent stretches of sandy beach or clambered over the rocks and it finally struck me that Lanagan’s ferret eyes were not at all absent-minded or entirely busied with the natural beauties of the scene, but that he was examining closely every square inch of the ground we travelled; and the waters as we passed.
“Phillips is rather cagey,” he remarked. “He’ll have to be taught his place. He’s a good officer, though; and Leslie has his eye on him. We must look out for that chap. He not only has good legs, a prime requisite of a detective or a reporter, but he has a head that really works once in a while.”
He sat down finally under the shelter of a great rock and motioned me to do likewise. Then he pulled from his pocket, carefully tucked away, a V-shaped piece of paper written over with Chinese characters. The corner that made the apex of the V was crinkled.
“What do you make of it?”
“It’s a piece of a Chinese newspaper,” I replied.
“Really! You would do credit to Phillips. Examine it this time.”
I tried again, but could make nothing of it.
“Look.”
He uncrumpled the slight crinkling at the apex and a tiny bit of red paper was exposed. I was ashamed of my own lack of observation; but just as puzzled as before and said so.
“I should say,” said Lanagan, “that this paper with the Chinese characters was a piece of wrapping paper; that someone tore it from a package with his finger nails and that a portion of the red wrapper of the package itself, came off in his finger nails. See?” He crumpled it up and sure enough it fitted neatly into the space under his finger nail.