"You don't expect roast ducks to fly into your mouth, do you?" said Parge, indignantly. "Of course, it is no easy task to hunt down a criminal. We'd have all the bad 'uns in gaol if such was the case. You've only been a week looking after this ticket business, yet you shy off just because you can't find out about it straight away. You never were a detective, Absalom, and you never will be!" "But just look here," cried the badgered Absalom. "What can I do? I've been----" "I know where you've been--to Norminster," growled Parge, "and I know what you've done--nothing. You think I'm past work. I saw that the other day. Well, from nat'ral infirmity, or too much fat, so I am; but in nowise else, Absalom, so don't you believe it. If I was in your shoes, which I ain't, I'd write up to that station-master in Scotland, and ask him if he knows of any partic'ler person as left Norminster on that day. It ain't a big place, and if he's a sharp one he might remember." "I've written to the station-master," cried Gebb, crossly. "Oh, have you?" returned Parge, rather disappointed. "Then I'll be bound you don't know what you're going to do about that ticket clerk." "Yes, I do. I'm going to wait till he comes back, and then question him at once. In about a week I'll know all those two know, though I dare say it won't be much. And look you here, Simon," cried Gebb, warming up, "it's all very well your pitching into me over this case; but is it an easy one? 'Cause if you say it is, it ain't. I never in my born days came across such a corker of a case as this one. Who would have thought that Ferris and the girl would be mixed up in it?--yet they were. And who would have thought them guilty? Everybody! And were they guilty? You know they weren't. Can you find Dean? No, you can't, though you tried yourself when his trail was still fresh. Then how the devil do you expect me to find him after all these years? It's very easy to sit in your chair and pick holes, Simon, but when you come to work the case for yourself, you'll be as up a tree as I am at this blessed moment." "I don't deny that the case is hard, Absalom." "Hard!" echoed Gebb, with scorn; "it's the most unnat'ral case as ever was. I've only got one blessed clue after all my hard work, and that's the railway ticket; which, so far as I can see, is about as much good as a clock would be to a baby." "Why don't you question Mrs. Presk?" "I have questioned her, and the servant too; and beyond the ticket, she don't know a blessed thing." "Can't Basson help you, or Mr. Alder, or Mr. Ferris?" "No, none of the three; they don't know who killed Miss Gilmar, and if it comes to a point, Simon, I don't see why they should know." "It is queer that the lot of them, including the girl, should have been in Grangebury on the very night of the murder," said Parge, with a musing air.