Hannasyde drummed his fingers lightly on the desk, considering. The Sergeant watched him sympathetically. Presently he said in his decided way: "Angela Angel. It comes back to her. It may sound far-fetched to you, Skipper, but I have an odd conviction that if only we knew more about her we should see what is so obstinately hidden now."
The Sergeant nodded. "Sort of a hunch. I'm a great believer in hunches myself. What'll we do? Advertise?"
Hannasyde thought it over. "No. Better not."
"I must say, I'm not keen on that method. What's more, if her people didn't come forward at the time of her death it isn't likely they will now."
"I don't want to precipitate another tragedy," Hannasyde said grimly.
The Sergeant sat up with a jerk. "What, more headbashings? You don't think that, do you?"
"I don't know. Someone is pretty determined that we shan't penetrate this fog we're groping in. Everything about the two murders suggests a very ruthless brain at work."
"Maniacal, I call it," said the Sergeant. "I mean, just think of it! You can understand a chap cracking open another chap's head if he was worked up into a white-hot rage. At the same time you'd expect him to feel a bit jolted by what he'd done, wouldn't you? I don't reckon to be squeamish, but I wouldn't like to have done the job myself, no, nor to have seen it done. Nasty, messy murder, I call it. But our bird isn't upset. Not he! He waltzes off and repeats the act - in cold blood, mind you! Think that's sane? I'm damned if I do!"
"All the more reason for being careful not to hand him a motive for killing someone else."
"That's true enough. But if we are dealing with a lunatic, Super, it's worse than I thought. You can catch up on a sane man. His mind works reasonably, same as your own; and, what's more important, he always has a motive for having committed his murder, which again is helpful. But when you come to a madman's brain you're properly in the soup, because you can't follow the way it works. And ten to one he hasn't got a motive for murder - not what a sane person would consider a motive, that is.