“I suppose the murderer might have picked him up.”
“He might. But why? Why?”
Superintendent Bell sighed heavily. “I judge we’ve some way to go, sir. And we don’t seem to get any nearer the butler.”
“Your job,” said Reggie, and again the Superintendent sighed.
That night through a drizzling rain, lanterns moved in the village churchyard. The vault in which the Carwells of a hundred and fifty years lie crumbling was opened, and out of it a coffin was borne away. One man lingered in the vault holding a lantern high. He moved from one coffin to another, and came up again to the clean air and the rain. “All present and correct,” he said. “No deception, Bell.”
Superintendent Bell coughed. Sometimes he thinks Mr. Fortune lacking in reverence.
“Division of labour,” Reggie sank into the cushions of the car and lit a pipe, “the division of labour is the great principle of civilization. Perhaps you didn’t know that? In the morning I will look at the corpse and you will look for the butler.”
“Well, sir, I don’t care for my job, but I wouldn’t have yours for a hundred pounds.”
“Yet it has a certain interest,” Reggie murmured, “for that poor devil with the death sentence on him.”
To their hotel in Southam Reggie Fortune came back on the next day rather before lunch time.