"I don't know how it is," said Hemingway, "but whenever I get an assistant detailed to me he can't ever find anything better to do than to remember a lot of things I've said which it would do him more good to forget. I had a young fellow once with just that same habit, before the War it was, and do you know what happened to him? He had to leave the Force!"
"If it's Wake you're meaning," said Grant patiently, "I know well he left the Force, for he married a widow with a snug business, and already they have three, or it may be four, bairns."
"Well, let that be a lesson to you!" said Hemingway. "Stop trying to annoy me, and come to Jermyn Street!"
The morning papers were on sale by this time; as the police-car paused, in a traffic hold-up, before a newsagent's shop, flaring headlines caught the Chief Inspector's eye. One of the more popular journals sought to attract custom by the caption, written in arresting capitals: Murder at a Bridge-Party! Inspector Grant slid quickly out of the car, procured a copy of this enterprising news-sheet, and jumped back into the car as it moved forward.
"That," said Hemingway grimly, "must have been sent in before two o'clock this morning — if not earlier! Nice times we live in!"
Scanning the somewhat meagre information contained in the paragraphs beneath the headlines, Grant said: "I doubt this is the butler."
"Well, I don't!" said his superior. "There isn't any doubt at all about it! Come to think of it, butlers must make a pretty penny on the side. I wonder what they gave him for this tit-bit?"
"I do not know," said Grant conscientiously. "But it is in my mind that he would not have done this if he had been in the service of his last employer. Mind, I do not, myself, set any great store by a Sassenach, but I would say that Lord Minsterley was a gentleman-born, and would be respected by his servants! It is as I told you: they have no respect for Mrs. Haddington. There was a telephone in the butler's pantry. Content you, he sent the news before ever we arrived at that house."
"Why you should suppose that should content me I don't know, but never mind!" said Hemingway. "It only means the crime reporters will be badgering us a bit sooner than we looked for."
Mr. Seaton-Carew's flat, in a block of bachelors' chambers, was on the third floor. An electric lift bore the two police officers to this floor; and the door of the flat was opened to them by a willowy manservant, who, if he did not appear to be startled by their arrival, was certainly nervous. He said that he had been advised earlier of his master's death; and made haste to usher them into the sitting-room.