"I shall have to check the verbal information after all," said Nigel as he put back his hat and papers on the table.
"Where are you off to?" asked Gartside as he approached the door.
"It seems I must search the house myself."
"You undertook to accept our finding."
"I thought I could trust you."
"I have said Miss Davenant is not in these rooms," said Gartside in a warning voice.
"If you said it a hundred times I should still disbelieve you. Let me pass, please."
He raised a hand to clear himself a passage, but in physical strength he had met more than his match. Seizing both wrists in one hand and both ankles in the other, Gartside carried him like a child's doll across the room to the open library window, thrust him through it, and held him for ninety seconds stretched at arm's length three storeys above the level of the street. The veins stood out on his forehead, and I heard his voice rumbling like the distant mutter of thunder.
"When I say a thing, Nigel, you have to believe me. The moon's of green cheese if I tell you to believe it, and when I say Miss Davenant's not in this flat, she's not and never has been, and never will be. You see?"
Stepping back from the window, he dropped his burden on a neighbouring sofa. Nigel straightened his tie, brushed his clothes, and once more gathered up his hat, his papers, and the remains of his dignity.