"Yes, sir," said Cook, rather woodenly.
"That's all right," interposed Hemingway. "I'm always grateful for a bit of help. I wouldn't like you to think I haven't taken the doctor into account, because I have. But so far I haven't had so much as a smell of a motive. That isn't to say I won't have, of course."
"Are you looking for one?" asked Small, staring at him.
"High and low," responded the Inspector promptly. To his Sergeant, a moment or two later, when they were alone, he added: "And that's truer than what old fat-face thinks. At least, when I say I'm hunting high and low, what I mean is that some other mug's going round Chipston making a fool of himself. I'm what you might call the brains behind the organisation."
"Do you mean you're expecting to find that Chester's the heir to the old mad woman's money?" demanded Wake, startled out of his customary stolidity.
"The secret of being a highly efficient officer," said Hemingway, fixing him with a quelling look, "is on the one hand never to expect anything, and on the other never to be surprised at anything either. You remember that, my lad, and you may do as well as I have. I don't say you will, because your psychology's bad and you haven't got vision, but you may. What's the time?"
"Going on for four o'clock," replied Wake, swallowing these strictures with a visible effort.
The Inspector frowned, and lit a cigarette from the stub of his old one. "If Aunt Clara isn't something Carter saw in an opium-dream, I ought to be hearing from the Chief pretty soon."
The call from. London came through five minutes later, and the Sergeant, informed that Superintendent Hannasyde wanted to speak to Inspector Hemingway, handed over the receiver to his superior, and tried to look as though he were not listening. He soon abandoned this detached attitude, for the half of the conversation which he could hardly have helped hearing was too maddeningly tantalising to be ignored.
"That you, sir?" said Hemingway. "I've been getting what you might call a bit jumpy. Did they find anything?…They did?… You don't say!… On no, I'm not surprised: I thought they would… They got what?… Oh, trustee! Yes, I get it. Was he able to tell us who the present heir is?… Nice work, sir! Let me have it!"