“Well, you criticized my methods, remember. If I were to arrest the fellow just now, I doubt if I could convince a jury of his guilt. And they’d be quite right. It’s their business to be sceptical and insist on definite proof. It’s that proof that I expect to get out of to-night’s work.”
“It will be very instructive for me, sir,” Inspector Armadale commented, with heavy irony.
“You take things too seriously,” Sir Clinton retorted, with an evident double meaning in the phrase. “What you need, Inspector, is a touch of fantasy. You’ll get a taste of it to-night, perhaps, unless my calculations go far astray. Now I’m going to ring up Mr. Chacewater and make arrangements for to-night.”
And with that he dismissed the Inspector.
Armadale retired with a grave face; but when he closed the door behind him his expression changed considerably.
“There he was, pulling my leg again, confound him!” he reflected. “A touch of fantasy, indeed! What’s he getting at now? And the worst of it is I haven’t got to the bottom of the business yet myself. He’s been quite straight in giving me all the facts. I’m sure of that. But they seem to me just a jumble. They don’t fit together anyhow. And yet he’s not the bluffing kind; he’s got it all fixed up in his mind; I’m sure of that, whether he’s right or wrong. Well, we’ll see before many hours are over.”
And with reflections like these Inspector Armadale had to content himself until nightfall.
As they drove up to the Ravensthorpe gates the Inspector found Sir Clinton in one of his uncommunicative moods. He seemed abstracted, and even, as the Inspector noted with faint malice, a little anxious about the business before them. When they reached the gates they found the constabulary squad awaiting them. Sir Clinton got out of the car, after running it a little way up the avenue.
“Now, the first thing you’ve got to remember,” he said, addressing the squad, “is that in no circumstances are you to make the slightest noise until you hear my second whistle. You know what you’re to do? Get up behind the house at the end opposite to the servants’ wing and stay there till you get my signal. Then you’re to come out and chase the man whom the Inspector will show you. You’re not to try to catch him. Keep a hundred yards behind him all the time; but don’t lose sight of him. The Inspector will give you instructions after you’ve chased for a while. Now which of you are the two with tennis shoes?”
Two constables stepped out of the ranks. Sir Clinton took them aside and gave them some special instructions.