“Then we won’t say anything, constable,” replied the girl brightly. “But we really didn’t do it, you know. Can we go now, please? We’ve got an appointment with——” “Are you sure he’s dead, constable?” Mr. Priestley interrupted, in not too steady tones. His mind had begun to work again and the glimmerings of a plan had appeared to him. “You haven’t—er—examined him, you know. He may not be dead at all.” “But the young lady said he was,” objected the constable, with the air of one scoring a distinct point. Mr. Priestley almost danced with impatience. “Well, examine him, man, and find out for yourself!” he cried. The habit of obedience was strong in the constable. This was how he was accustomed to being addressed, and then he just went and did as he had been told. He did so now, and turned his back on the other two in order to advance towards the corpse. Now it had been Mr. Priestley’s plan, as soon as this large back was turned, to grab the girl by the wrist and make a bolt for it, trusting to the darkness and the waiting two-seater to make a clean get-away. What was to come after that, or what his own future course was to be, he had not had time to consider; for the present the future could take care of itself. He dived forward to grab. The girl must have been a singularly obtuse young woman. Apparently she had not gathered the faintest inkling of Mr. Priestley’s deep scheme. Instead of waiting to be grabbed she had actually darted forward herself and forestalled the constable at the corpse’s side. “His heart isn’t beating at all!” she exclaimed, dropping on her knees again and guiding the constable’s large hand inside the corpse’s shirt. It is remarkable how emotion derives us of a large proportion of our horse-sense. The constable’s emotion had a different basis from that of Mr. Priestley, but neither did he notice that he was anxiously feeling the corpse’s right wing instead of his left. “And his pulse isn’t beating either,” amplified the girl, submitting the corpse’s inert wrist to official inspection. “It isn’t that,” agreed the constable solemnly. He was perfectly right. Pulses very seldom do beat on the wrong side of the wrist. “Let’s try a feather on his nose,” suggested the girl. “Have you got a feather? No? Well, I suppose a hair will do.” She plucked one from her own head and laid it delicately across the corpse’s nostrils; it did not quiver. She waited a few moments till signs of incipient apoplexy became apparent in the corpse’s features, then lifted the hair and examined it closely. “It never moved,” she announced. “Here, constable, you’d better keep this. It’s a valuable piece of evidence, you know. Have you got a pocket-book?” The constable took the hair and placed it carefully between the blank pages of his notebook. He was not quite certain as to its precise importance, but he was very amenable to suggestion. “’E’s dead all right,” he announced portentously.