"But--well, since we are discussing this I wish you could be a little plainer," I said. "You say all Chelsea's interested in this Case, and I don't live in Chelsea. Why is Chelsea so interested?" He replied promptly enough. "Because, sir, of certain things that don't appear on the surface of which I happen to have some knowledge." "May I ask what things?" He echoed me. "And may I ask you something, and that is whether you happen to be aware that the police searched certain premises the other morning?" "Do you mean the morning of the accident?" "I do _not_ mean the morning of the accident. I'm speaking of last Friday morning, at six o'clock, before anybody was about." I considered a moment. Then, "But why not?" I replied. "Is there anything unusual about that? Surely when an accident takes place the police are the proper people to investigate it?" I thought he would have jumped out of his chair with vehemence. "Ah!" he cried. "Now you're talking! That's more like! The proper people? So they are; you stick to that! And now I'll ask you this: If that's so, why keep things back from them? Why this hushing up? Answer me that. Or bring some of your friends to answer it. That's all I have to say!" And he flung himself back in his chair and continued to mutter softly. It was evident that his choler against Mackwith had risen again. What had passed between the two men was no less plain. If Mackwith was right in his estimate of this fellow, air-raid nights spent in cellars are not the best of training for duties so unpleasant as those a coroner's inquest sometimes involves. Billy, on the other hand, did his bit in a Field Company and is tempered metal throughout. In any contest of wills between two such men there was no doubt which would be the victor. It had hardly occurred to Billy that there was a contest. Innocently and unconsciously, he had ridden roughshod over Westbury, and, if Westbury's mutterings meant anything, was to suffer for it. "But," I said presently, "I'm afraid I don't understand even yet. It seems to me you're bringing a charge against somebody of interfering in a very serious matter. If anybody has interfered I agree with you that it's a public scandal and ought to be exposed. But I can't believe I've understood you properly." He did not reply. "And not only that," I continued, "but, if you'll forgive my saying so, you're neither bringing a charge nor leaving it alone." Here, for the first time, a third person put in an aside. "Tell him about that, Harry," a voice whispered. (And, feeling pretty sure that I could guess what "That" was, I thought, "Now for that wearisome bullet story all over again!") "I need hardly say," I went on, "that if you have any such charge to make there's not a single person who was there who won't gladly help you." ("Tell him about that, Harry," the voice whispered again.)