But neither coat nor shirt, neither collar nor trousers bore any mark of ownership. The suit was from Messrs. Watkins in New Oxford Street, the shirt and collar were of a brand which it would be mere advertisement to mention. During all this time, Reeves was making a transcript of the three documents, not without a certain sense of intrusion upon a dead man’s confidence. As Gordon began to look into one of the boots, Reeves gave a whisper of warning, and a policeman (for they have motorcycles even in the police force) came into distant view. Panic seized the forces of Baker Street, and (forgetting that they had a perfect right to be in charge of the dead man’s body) they resumed, very shamefacedly, their search for the lost ball. It seemed incongruous somehow, to be worrying about a golf-ball—ought there to be a local rule about what happened if you found a corpse on the links? Certainly the game had been abandoned, and the caddies, to their great regret, sent back with the clubs. “Good evening, gentlemen,” said the policeman, eyeing them narrowly. It was not that he suspected them or anybody of anything; he merely sized them up by force of habit to see whether they were the kind of people you touched your hat to or the kind of people you told to move on. The scrutiny being favourable, he allowed them to slash about in the undergrowth and watch, with ill-concealed curiosity, the official proceedings of Scotland Yard. Scotland Yard did very much what they had done, only with a splendidly irrelevant thoroughness. Not only the destination, class, and date of the ticket had to be registered in the notebook, but its price—there even seemed to be a moment’s hesitation about the Company’s regulations on the back. Nor did the names of the cigarette-importer and the collar-maker go unrecorded; both watchmakers, the post-marks on the correspondence, the date on the florins—nothing escaped this man. Tired of waiting for the doctor and the inevitable ambulance, Gordon and Reeves abandoned the truant ball, and made their way thoughtfully to the dormy-house. Wilson, the club gossip, met them at the entrance. “Heard about old Brotherhood?” he asked, and went on, before they had time to gasp: “He’s gone bankrupt; heard it to-day in the City.” “Really?” said Reeves. “Come and have a drink.” But if he thought that he too had the telling of a story, he was mistaken; the door opened on a well-known voice: “Yes, sliced his drive badly, did Reeves. A curious thing, that,—you ‘slice’ a ball in golf and you ‘cut’ a ball at cricket, and it’s the same action in either case, and yet it’s nothing whatever to do with the motion of cutting a cake. What was I saying? Oh yes. Right against the viaduct—did you ever see the big viaduct they’ve got at Welwyn? A finer one than ours, even—he found . . .” Which made it evident that Mr. Carmichael was telling, in his own way, the story of the day’s adventure. Chapter III Piecing it Together