“Oh, I’m not in the force.”
“We do have to be so careful,” the Superintendent sighed. “That’s a handicap, that is. I wonder why you wanted me, doctor?”
“I’m frightened of your inspector. He’s not chatty. I want to photograph the body.”
The Superintendent turned to Gordon. “It’s a taste, you know, that’s what it is. He likes corpses. Speaking as man to man, doctor, are you working with us?”
“May I?”
“That’s very handsome. Yes. Inspector Mordan, he has a kind of a manner, as you might say. I’ll speak to him. Is there anything you’d like to tell me, doctor?”
“Nice flowers, aren’t they?” Reggie nodded to the rose-bed under Birdie Bolton’s window. It was minutely neat.
“Look as if they’d been brought up by hand,” said the Superintendent, but he looked at Reggie, not the roses. “Anything queer, sir?”
“There’s that,” Reggie said. He pointed to a spray of the Gloire de Dijon beside the window. It bore a bud; it had been broken, and the bud was limp and dead.
“That wasn’t broken last night,” said the Superintendent.