At the other end of the wire, Superintendent Hinckley grinned unseen. "I'm not lying in my nice, warm bed! I'm on duty, and I'll thank you to remember it, my lad!"
Chief Inspector Hemingway, around whose exposed shoulders an icy draught was blowing, replied to this sally in terms which caused his superior to inform him severely that he wanted to hear no more of his lip. "Wake up!" he said. "This is a job after your own heart."
"At this time of night?" said Hemingway indignantly. "Don't tell me another Pole has gone and got himself knifed by one of his pals, because I'm not as young as I was, and if I've got to go off at this hour and listen to a lot of highly excitable foreigners, all jabbering different lies at me, I'm chucking the Force right now!"
"It isn't anything like that," replied the Superintendent. "Didn't I tell you it was after your own heart? Some bloke's been strangled in a house in Charles Street. Very classy joint: what you call good decor!"
In spite of himself, Hemingway was interested. "You don't say! What's-it all about? Robbery with violence?"
"No, nothing of that sort, as far as I can make out. In fact, no one knows rightly what it's all about. It happened in the middle of a Bridge-party, that I can tell you!"
"Ah!" said the Chief Inspector. "Daresay the chap led his partner a heart after he'd signalled he wanted a club. Well, I've got no sympathy for him!"
"Look here!" interrupted the Superintendent, in whom this suggestion awoke galling memories. "If I have much more from you, Stanley, you'll know it! Get up and dress! I'm putting you in charge!"
"What's C Division done?" demanded Hemingway, swinging his legs out of bed, and groping with his bare feet for his slippers. "Don't they do night-duty these days?"
"You'll find Inspector Pershore waiting for you at the house," said the Superintendent, with some relish.