“Nothing happened while you were waiting outside the billiard-room door; it had all happened already. Quite early on, while we were worrying about up here, Davenant saw that the place was unhealthy for him. He wandered out into the billiard-room, arranging the balls, I think, as a kind of message for us, and then strolled off somewhere—into the servants’ quarters, I suppose. It’s obvious that he must have had a confederate in the house. Then the police came—I imagine they must have watched somebody bringing him things from outside.” “Sullivan,” said Gordon. “That was what he was doing, obviously, the day I was over in Davenant’s cottage, he was taking him collars and things.” “Anyhow, the police came and climbed in at the cellar, making a great song and dance about it as the police always do. Davenant saw that things were getting pretty serious, so he made for the nearest motor-bike he could find—I don’t know whether he knew it belonged to the police or not. Having once started to run away, of course he couldn’t very well stop at Weighford and tell us it was all a silly mistake: having started to bolt, he had to go on bolting. And he did it damned cleverly: if he’d had time to shut the door of the carriage in the express, or had a season ticket to justify his presence in the Binver train, how could he have been caught? That was the train he always came back by on Saturdays.” “I don’t think he would have escaped,” said Carmichael. “Truth will out—there’s a lot in the old saying. By the way, I wonder if either of you know the origin of the phrase _magna est veritas et prævalebit_, or rather _prævalet_, to give the exact form?” “We’ll buy it,” said Gordon. “Actually it comes from the third book of Esdras. That’s a thing ninety-nine people out of a hundred don’t know. But what was I saying? Oh, yes, it’s extraordinary how criminals don’t escape. If you come to think of it, we were close on the track of our man the whole time.” “There,” said Gordon, “I can’t agree with you. Up to a certain point we were on the right track. Then you came and confused all the tracks with your ‘Davenant-is-Brotherhood’ slogan. After that we were at a loss—or rather, it was worse than that, we were definitely off the true scent, although the man himself was within a few yards of us. It was only because he came out of his hiding-place and disturbed Reeves’ papers—a sheer accident, from our point of view—that we were able to start again. Now, your ideal detective is never dependent upon an accident.” “Well, don’t rub it in,” suggested Reeves. “After all, we are both of us as much to blame, because we swallowed Carmichael’s theory like lambs.” “Well, as a matter of fact, I never did agree with Carmichael.” “Never did agree with him? Well, you kept jolly dark about it. What weren’t you satisfied with about his explanation?”