CHAPTER XV.
Thorndyke Proposes a New Move
On the following morning, in order to make sure of arriving before the detective officer, I presented myself at King’s Bench-walk a good half-hour before I was due. The door was opened by Thorndyke himself, and as we shook hands he said: “I am glad you have come early, Gray. No doubt Polton explained the programme to you, but I should like to make our position quite clear. The officer who is coming here presently is Detective-Superintendent Miller, of the Criminal Investigation Department. He is quite an old friend, and he is coming at my request to give me certain information. But, of course, he is a detective officer, with his own duties to his department, and an exceedingly shrewd, capable man. Naturally, if he can pick up any crumbs of information from us, he will; and I don’t want him to learn more, at present, than I choose to tell him.”
“Why do you want to keep him in the dark?” I asked.
“Because,” he replied, “we are doing quite well, and I want to get the case complete before I call in the police. If I were to tell him all I know and all I think, he might get too busy, and scare our man away before we have enough evidence to justify an arrest. As soon as the investigation is finished, and we have such evidence as will secure a conviction, I shall turn the case over to him; meanwhile, we keep our own counsel. Your rôle this morning will be that of listener. Whatever happens, make no comment. Act as if you knew nothing that is not of public knowledge.”
I promised to follow his directions to the letter, though I could not get rid of the feeling that all this secrecy was somewhat futile. Then I began to tell him of my experiences of the previous night, to which he listened at first with grave interest, but with growing amusement as the story developed. When I came to the final chase and the pursuing policeman, he leaned back in his chair and laughed heartily.
“Why,” he exclaimed, wiping his eyes, “it was a regular procession! It only wanted a string of sausages and a harlequin to bring it up to pantomime form.”
“Yes,” I admitted with a grin, “it was a ludicrous affair. But it was a mighty mysterious affair too. You see, neither of the men was the man I had expected. There must be more people in this business than we had supposed. Have you any idea who these men can be?”
“It isn’t much use making vague guesses,” he replied. “The important point to note is that this incident, farcical as it turned out, might easily have taken a tragical turn; and the moral is that for the present you can’t be too careful in keeping out of harm’s way.”
It was obvious to me that he was evading my question; that those two sinister strangers were not the mystery to him that they were to me, and I was about to return to the charge with a more definitely pointed question when an elaborate flourish on the little brass knocker of the inner door announced a visitor.
The tall, military-looking man whom Thorndyke admitted was evidently the Superintendent, as I gathered from the mutual greetings. He looked rather hard at me until Thorndyke introduced me, which he did with characteristic reticence.