The Inspector fixed him with a bright and fulminating eye. "Don't you get insubordinate with me, my lad!" he warned him. "I'm never wrong."
The Sergeant grinned. He had worked with Inspector Hemingway many times, and had almost as great a respect for his foibles as for his undoubted ability.
"And don't stand there smirking as though you were off on a Cheap Day Excursion, because if I were to burst a blood-vessel you'd very likely get blamed for it!"
"Why should I, sir?" asked Ware, diverted.
"Because that's the way things turn out in the Force," said the Inspector darkly.
Chapter Nine
There was no apparent reason to suppose, on the following morning, that Inspector Hemingway was regarding the case with a less jaundiced eye. On the journey into Hampshire, he spoke bitterly and at length on the subject of the play which he had been helping to produce in his hometown, and which was to be performed on Boxing Day. He saw no prospect of being present upon this interesting occasion, and the trend of his remarks led Ware to infer that without his masterful hand upon the reins the play had little chance of succeeding, if, indeed, it could be performed at all.
The Drama was one of the Inspector's pet hobbyhorses, and the Sergeant sat back in his corner of the railway compartment, and resigned himself to the inevitable. The expression of interest which concealed his almost total inattention did not deceive the Inspector for an instant. "Yes, I know you aren't listening," he said. "If you listened more, you'd be a better detective, besides being a lot more respectful to your superiors. The trouble with you young chaps is that you think you've got nothing to learn."
The Sergeant had never been disrespectful to his superiors in all his blameless life, and his painstaking efforts to broaden his knowledge were notorious, but he attempted no protest. Merely he grinned, and said that he had never been much of a one for the theatre.
"You needn't tell me!" said Hemingway disgustedly. "I'll bet you spend all your off time at the pictures!"