“You can have all you want of me from now till midnight,” he declared. “My business doesn’t take very long, and I can only see the people I want to see in the middle of the day. After that, I don’t mind telling you that I find time hangs a bit on my hands. Try one of these,” he added, producing a cigar case. The Inspector thanked him and helped himself. Mr. Coulson summoned the waiter. “Highball for me,” he directed. “What’s yours, Mr. Jacks?” “Thank you very much,” the Inspector said. “I will take a little Scotch whiskey and soda.” The two men sat down. The corner was a retired one, and there was no one within earshot. “Say, are you still on this Hamilton Fynes business?” Mr. Coulson asked. “Partly,” the Inspector replied. “You know, I’m not making reflections,” Mr. Coulson said, sticking his cigar in a corner of his mouth and leaning back in a comfortable attitude, “but it does seem to me that you are none too rapid on this side in clearing up these matters. Why, a little affair of that sort wouldn’t take the police twenty minutes in New York. We have a big city, full of alien quarters, full of hiding places, and chock full of criminals, but our police catch em, all the same. There’s no one going to commit murder in the streets of New York without finding himself in the Tombs before he’s a week older. No offence, Mr. Jacks.” “I am not taking any, Mr. Coulson,” the Inspector answered. “I must admit that there’s a great deal of truth in what you say. It is rather a reflection upon us that we have not as yet even made an arrest, but I think you will also admit that the circumstances of those murders were exceedingly curious.” Mr. Coulson knocked the ash from his cigar. “Well, as to that,” he said, “and if we are to judge only by what we read in the papers, they are curious, without a doubt. But I am not supposing for one moment that you fellows at Scotland Yard don’t know more than you’ve let on to the newspapers. You keep your discoveries out of the Press over here, and a good job, too, but you wouldn’t persuade me that you haven’t some very distinct theory as to how that crime was worked, and the sort of person who did it. Eh, Mr. Jacks?” “We are perhaps not quite so ignorant as we seem,” the Inspector answered, “and of course you are right when you say that we have a few more facts to go by than have appeared in the newspapers. Still, the affair is an extremely puzzling one,--as puzzling, in its way,” Mr. Jacks continued, “as the murder on the very next evening of this young American gentleman.” Mr. Coulson nodded sympathetically. The drinks were brought, and he raised his glass to his guest. “Here’s luck!” he said--“luck to you with your game of human chess, and luck to me with my woollen machinery patents! You were speaking of that second murder,” he remarked, setting down his glass. “I haven’t noticed the papers much this morning. Has any arrest been made yet?”