For it was now clear that we were looking, without very much dismay, into the perilous face of Conspiracy. A pistol had been fired, and humanly speaking could only have been fired by one man. If the pistol, therefore, ought to have been handed over to the police, _a fortiori_ ought the man who had fired it. But that appeared to be precisely the sticking-point. It was here that I saw both Hubbard and Esdaile preparing to dig in. In a word, until they (private individuals, mark you) knew more about it, Chummy Smith was not to be given up. Monty's attitude at about this stage began to be rather amusing. Suddenly he left the stool of repentance and began to walk about. He even swelled a little. It was he, after all, who had in a sense saved the situation, and when the cartridge-case was produced (for Hubbard and Esdaile had their heads together over the pistol-barrel again in search of further minute indications) he became almost cock of the walk. Incidentally he had one of those flashes of insight I told you he sometimes had, or at any rate it was a flash with which I myself am not without a certain amount of sympathy. "Well, there isn't half enough murder in the world if you ask _me_," he said. "Only they're the wrong people. If you could get somebody really trustworthy to pick out the right ones no end of good would be done." "Oh, shut up!" said Philip rudely; and happily the dangerous theory was not pressed. But Monty had used the awkward word "murder." And if Monty was amusing, the state of mind of the other two was now fascinatingly interesting. For you see their predicament. To put it quite plainly, they were trying to screw up their courage. Esdaile in particular was almost visibly hardening his heart. That was the fascinating part--to see exactly how much and how little homage they would pay to the decencies before they thought themselves free to go ahead. The stages of the comedy were rapid. The first of them came when Esdaile wondered whether he oughtn't to go to the telephone, not to communicate with the police, but to ask for the latest news of Chummy's progress. "Seems funny to think of Chummy being laid out six months after the War's all over," he said. "Remember the Jazz Band in the Mess, Cecil?" "Red Pepper Two-Step on the Birds, eh?" said Hubbard. (I am aware that this needs elucidation. The Helmsea Mess Jazz Band had been a noteworthy improvisation, and the Birds had been Chummy Smith's special department. They were stuffed Birds, set in cases round the walls, and the glass fronts of the cases had formed Smith's tympani. With drumming fingertips and softly-pounding wrists I learned that he had got great variety out of his instruments.) "And the cock-fight between the razorbills?" Esdaile continued. I could also make a guess at the kind of rag that had been. "And the night old Pike's motor-bike broke down?"