“I’m sorry, officer,” said Gordon, “but you must see that we’ve been going round one another in circles. You’re looking for a murderer—let me make a rash guess, and put it to you that it’s Brotherhood’s murderer you’re looking for? Well, we’re doing exactly the same. It seems that, by a mere chance, he’s been taking refuge in a passage which communicates with this room which is rented by Mr. Reeves here. And instead of finding the murderer, we’ve found one another.” “Very irregular, gentlemen. You know as well as I do that if you’ve any information in your possession which might lead to the conviction of the criminal, it’s your duty to communicate it to the police. Of course, I’m very sorry if I gave you gentlemen a fright, but you’ve got to look at it this way, Whose business is it to see justice done, yours or mine? You see, if it hadn’t been for you gentlemen giving the alarm, not meaning to, I’m not saying you meant to, but if you gentlemen hadn’t given the alarm, I might have got this chap bottled up properly in the passage there; and now how am I to know where he is? That’s the way you’ve got to look at it.” “But the coroner’s jury brought in a verdict of suicide,” objected Reeves. “Ah, that may be; but you see it’s this way, the Force isn’t tied down by what the coroner’s jury says, and if the Force has its suspicions, then it acts accordingly; and if anybody else has their suspicions, then it’s their duty to communicate them to the police, d’you see? And then the police can act accordingly.” “Well, I’m very sorry if we’ve interfered with your plans at all,” said Gordon, seeing that the Olympian rage was taking its normal course, and simmering down into a flood of explanatory platitude. “We were meaning to take a little something after all that hunting about in the wainscoting; it’s dusty work. I suppose it’s no good asking you to join us, Inspector?” “Sergeant, sir, is what I am. Of course, it’s against the regulations, strictly speaking, when on duty; but if you was to offer me something just to show there’s no offence taken, why then I won’t say No to a glass.” And, as the pledge of amity began to flow, Jove ratified his compact by the infallible formula, “Here’s to your very good health, gentlemen.” Reeves felt that the moment had arrived for cooperating with Scotland Yard. The fact that Scotland Yard, with no golf balls and no photographs to guide it, no Carmichael and no chewing-gum to aid it, had after all got on the track of the right criminal, began to impress him. “Well, Sergeant,” he said, “there’s not much sense in either of us playing a lone hand, is there? What I’m asking myself is, why shouldn’t you and we hunt in couples?”