The inspector went off on his errand, much to the relief of Wendover, whose antagonism to Armadale had in no way cooled. Sir Clinton led the way to the breakfast-room, and impressed on his waiter the necessity for haste. As they sat down, Wendover saw inquisitive glances shot at their table by other guests in distant parts of the room. Evidently the news of the tragedy on the beach was common property by now.
“I don't think Armadale made much of that business,” Wendover commented in a voice low enough to be inaudible to their nearest neighbours. “There's nothing so undignified as a bit of bullying when it doesn't quite come off.”
Sir Clinton never allowed a criticism of a subordinate to pass unanswered.
“Armadale did his best, and in nine cases out of ten he'd have got what he wanted. You're looking at the thing from the sentimental standpoint, you know. The police have nothing to do with that side of affairs. Armadale's business is to extract all the information he can and then use it, no matter where it leads him. If an official had to stop his investigations merely because a pretty girl breaks down and cries, we shouldn't be a very efficient force in society.”
“He met his match in young Fleetwood,” Wendover pointed out, with hardly concealed satisfaction.
Sir Clinton gazed across the table with a curious expression on his face.
“For a J. P. you seem to be strangely out of sympathy with the minions of the law. If you ask me, young Fleetwood will have himself to thank for anything that happens now. Of course, he's gained two or three days in which he can discuss everything in detail with his wife, and they can concoct between them just what they propose to tell us eventually. But I never yet saw a faked-up yarn that would stand the test of careful investigation and checking. And you may take it that, after the way Armadale was received, he'll put every word he gets from them under a microscope before he accepts it as true.”
Wendover nodded a gloomy assent to this view.
“I expect he will,” he agreed. “Perhaps it's a pity that young Fleetwood took that line.”
“I gave him his chance to make a clean breast of it, if he'd any reasonable tale to tell,” Sir Clinton pointed out with a trace of impatience. “All I got was a piece of guttersnipe insolence. Obviously he thinks he can get the better of us; but when it comes to the pinch, I think——”