Superintendent Bell smiled slowly. “We do have to be so careful, sir. Would you believe it, I don’t so much as know who did the open-air work in the Coal Ramp. There was half a dozen firms in the boom, quite respectable firms. But who had the tip first, and who was doing the big business, I know no more than the babe in arms.”
“Yes, there’s some brains about,” Lomas agreed.
But Reggie, who was watching the Superintendent, said, “What’s up your sleeve, Bell?”
The Superintendent laughed. “You do have a way of putting things, Mr. Fortune.” He lit a cigarette and looked at his chief. “I don’t know what you thought of Mr. Sandford, Mr. Lomas?”
“More do I, Bell,” said Lomas. “I only know he’s not a man and a brother.”
“What I should describe as a lonely cove, sir,” Bell suggested. “Chiefly interested in himself, you might say.”
“He’s a climber,” said Lomas.
“Well, well! Who is Sandford—what is he, that all the world don’t love him?” Reggie asked. “Who was his papa? What was his school?”
“Well, now, it’s rather odd you should ask that, sir,” said Superintendent Bell.
“He didn’t have a school. He didn’t have a father,” said Lomas. “First he knows he was living with his widowed mother, an only child, in a little village in North Wales—Llan something. He went to the local grammar-school. He was a kind of prize boy. He got a scholarship at Pembroke, Oxford. Then Mrs. Sandford died, leaving him about a pound a week. He got firsts at Oxford, and came into the Home Civil pretty high. He’s done well in his Department, and they can’t stand him.”