"No, not necessarily. None of us four's left-handed. It's all according to taste. Some find it natural to do it one way, some prefer the other. Try doing it my way!"
The Inspector obeyed, but slowly. He said: "It is not just natural to me - but I could do it!"
"Could, but wouldn't. Well, I think that's about enough for today - and not so bad, either! You get off home now. I don't want you at the Inquest tomorrow: once we're through with Sir Roderick Vickerstown and the doctor, I shall ask for an adjournment. You go to Poulton's offices, and see what you can discover there! I'll see you here, after the Inquest: I'm not meeting this Eddleston chap till twelve o'clock, in Charles Street."
The Inspector picked up his hat, saying with his fugitive smile: "You always say, do you not, that when a case becomes so tangled there is no solving it something will break?"
"I daresay, because it's perfectly true! Why I wasn't made a Superintendent years ago I shall never know! These two bits of wire, Sandy, show how the best laid plans of mice and men can gang agley!"
"Ma seadh!" said the Inspector, his hand on the doorknob. "But where you learned that Lowland accent I know not!" Upon which Parthian shot he circumspectly withdrew, closing the door softly behind him.
Chapter Eighteen
They met on the following morning. The Inspector made a little gesture of incomprehension. "It becomes more and more duilich!" he said. "Unless they lied to me at Poulton's office, or he to them, they expect him to return this afternoon. I had the particulars of this conference he has gone to .attend from his head clerk. Och, I suspected there was no conference, but it is true enough!"
"Well, that doesn't surprise me," replied Hemingway. "Somehow it never seemed likely that a bird like Poulton would have skipped the country for good. Too hard a head, for one thing; and too much at stake for another. Not counting that wife of his. If, as seems the safest bet at the moment, he committed the second murder, I don't doubt he's got an unshakeable alibi up his sleeve."
"Now, that he cannot have," the Inspector said reasonably. "For well we know he was the last man to see the poor lady alive!"