"The police get some funny jobs, sir," he confided. "Only last night a gentleman rang up the station and asked them to tell me to stop a short, stout lady with yellow hair and a big blue hat (that was the only description) as she passed this point and to inform her that her husband had had to go out but that he had left the door-key just inside the dog-kennel!"
He laughed good-humoredly.
"Now to-night," he resumed, "here's somebody just rung up to say that he thinks, only thinks, mind you, that he has forgotten to lock his garage and will the constable on that beat see if the keys have been left behind. If so, will he lock the door from the inside, go out through the back, lock that door and leave the keys at the station on coming off duty!"
"Yes," I said. "There are some absent-minded people in the world. But do you mean the Red House in College Road?"
"That's it," replied the sergeant, stepping out of the hut and looking intently to the left.
"Ah, here comes Bolton."
He referred to a stolid, red-faced constable who at that moment came plodding across the muddy road, and:
"A job for you, Bolton," he cried. "Listen. You know the Red House in College Road?"
Bolton removed his helmet and scratched his closely-cropped head.
"Let me see," he mused; "it's on the right—"