A quarter of an hour later he picked the sergeant up outside his house and drove him away through the town to Ivy Cottage. The sergeant was in a state of high expectation and demanded instantly to know what they were going to do. Mr. Amberley said that they were going to collect a little evidence. "I rather think, Sergeant, that you will watch a man break into Ivy Cottage."
"Will I?" said the sergeant. "If I was to see anything like that I wouldn't waste time goggling at it, sir. I'd arrest him."
"When we make an arrest it's going to be on a charge of murder, not of housebreaking," said Amberley briefly.
He ran the car up the lane about a hundred yards past Ivy Cottage, rounding the next bend, and there switched off all his lights. The sergeant had not known that Shirley Brown had moved to the Boar's Head until Amberley told him. He wanted to know whether she had given Amberley the key, and when Amberley replied that he had taken it without her knowledge, he said uneasily that he hoped he was not going to get into trouble over this.
The cottage was very silent, lit dimly by the moonlight that came in through the uncurtained windows. Amberley told the sergeant to close the kitchen shutters and went off himself to draw the curtains in the other rooms.
"I see," said the sergeant brightly. "Make it look as though the young lady was still here. Then what do we do?"
"I'll tell you in a minute," Amberley promised.
When he had made his tour of the cottage he rejoined the sergeant in the kitchen and set his torch on the table. "Now, Sergeant, if you'll attend to me for a minute," he said. "With any luck you may be able to make that arrest you're so keen about. What I want you to do is to go upstairs and get into bed. If you hear anyone coming up the stairs, pull the clothes well over you. I rather think we're going to have a visitor."
"Is that all I've got to do?" said the sergeant. "Because if it is I'd as soon be in my own bed."
"Not at all, Sergeant. You're going to play the part of the dummy. If our visitor tries to suffocate you or chloroform you, collar him."