"Did you see Mr. Blade?" enquired Malcolm Sage.
"Saw the whole blessed lot," was the cheery reply. "It's all as clear as milk," and he laughed.
"What did Mr. Blade say?" enquired Malcolm Sage, looking keenly across at the inspector.
"Just that he had nothing to say."
"His exact words. Can you remember them?" queried Malcolm Sage.
"Oh, yes!" replied the inspector. "He said, 'Inspector Murdy, I have nothing to say,' and then he shut up like a real Whitstable."
"He was away yesterday," remarked Malcolm Sage, who then told the inspector of his visit. "How about John Gray, the schoolmaster?" he queried.
"He practically told me to go to the devil," was the genial reply. Inspector Murdy was accustomed to rudeness; his profession invited it, and to his rough-and-ready form of reasoning, rudeness meant innocence; politeness guilt.
He handed to Malcolm Sage a copy of a list of people who purchased "Olympic Script" from Mr. Grainger, the local Whiteley, volunteering the information that the curate was the biggest consumer, as if that settled the question of his guilt.
"And yet the vicar would not hear of the arrest of Blade," murmured Malcolm Sage, turning the copper ash-tray round with his restless fingers.