"Pausing on the way to strangle Seaton-Carew. Why?"
"I can't think," said Hemingway calmly. "He says he hadn't ever met him before."
"I think the better of him. Half a shake! What price Sir Roddy? He it was who discovered the body, wasn't it? Now, there's a line for you!"
"When you kept on getting under my feet in the Kane case, sir," said Hemingway, with some asperity, "you may have driven me dotty, but at least you took it seriously, not as if it was a roaring farce! I don't say you haven't been helpful, because you have, up to a point, but I can see it's high time I left!"
"Oh, don't go!" Timothy begged, his very blue eyes wickedly mocking. "If it's because you heard the doorbell, stay put. I told Kempsey to say I was out. Nobody but tradesmen would call on me at this hour, anyway. I'm one of the world's workers, I am."
He was wrong. A halting step sounded, the door was opened, and Mr. James Kane limped into the room.
"Hallo, Jim!" exclaimed Timothy, rising from his chair to the intense discomfort of Melchizedek. "Now, this really is a reunion! Meet your old friend Sergeant Hemingway, now masquerading under the guise of a Chief Inspector!"
"Then you were at that party!" said James Kane, casting upon the table a copy of that same periodical which had caught the Chief Inspector's eye earlier in the morning. "You bloody little pest, Timothy! I could scrap you! For God's sake, Hemingway, clap him into a cell at Canon Row, and keep him there! How are you? I can't say, considering the circumstances, that I'm glad to meet you here, but it's nice to see you not looking a day older! Is my blasted half-brother one of the suspects?"
"Well, sir, I'm bound to say that he is!" replied Hemingway, wringing his hand.