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puzzle,’ he thought. ‘What was Dr Gregory doing for five and a half minutes?’

CHAPTER 6
CLUES
    Meanwhile, in the billiard-room, the whole routine of such investigations was in full process. Superintendent Mitchell himself was there, his natural loquacity a little checked, but not much, by the presence of the Assistant Commissioner, for Bobby had been right in thinking the case was of sufficient importance to draw even that potentate from the Olympian heights whereon he usually dwelt. And there was the Divisional Detective-Inspector, and one or two other inspectors, all with their attendant sergeants, and an expert photographer, and two finger-print experts, and various other plain-clothes and uniform men till indeed the room was so crowded it was a wonder anyone there could get anything done at all.
    Nevertheless a good deal of work was being accomplished and gradually the crowd thinned as one or other departed on this ground or on that, the photographer to develop his plates, the finger-print experts after him, and everyone else who had nothing more important to do, to search the garden in the hope of finding footprints or any other clue. And the unhappy Bobby, alone, hungry, apparently forgotten, sat solitary in the study, and cursed the fate that had first plunged him into the midst of what seemed likely to prove the most sensational murder London had known for many years, and then thrown him carelessly into the backwater of a deserted study.
    He had permitted himself to open the study door as wide as possible, in the hope that one or other of the important-looking people he saw bustling to and fro might notice him as he sat within and watched them wistfully. The big man with the pale, flat face and small sandy moustache was, he knew, the famous Mitchell. At first sight it was difficult to say why even the most desperate criminal dreaded this man’s name and in his presence lost courage and self-possession; at least, it was till one noted how tightly the lips could close when they were not parted for speech, with what intensity of purpose the deep-set, grey eyes could glow at times. The tall, thin man in eye-glasses, who moved with so assured a step of authority and dignity, was probably, Bobby thought, the Assistant Commissioner, a person whose majestic path through life the humbler track pursued by Bobby had not yet approached. As a matter of fact the gentleman in eyeglasses was not the Assistant Commissioner, but the Assistant Commissioner’s assistant private secretary. The Assistant Commissioner was a small, thin, harassed-looking man, who went in perpetual fear of superiors and subordinates alike, was bullied frightfully at home by wife and children and the domestic staff, and never opened a daily paper without a panic terror that it might be starting a campaign for his resignation. The Divisional Detective-Inspector Bobby knew, and there was also a detective-sergeant Bobby knew by sight from having seen him in short skirt, silk stockings with clocks, and a coquettish hat trimmed with cherries, leading the dancing girls’ chorus at the last performance of the police minstrels. He still limped a little, though, from a bullet through the thigh he had received when arresting an Irish Communist at Liverpool, and there was some fear that this would interfere permanently with his dancing.
    But no one took any notice of Bobby; his only visitor was Lewis, who came in and said he wanted to use the phone as Miss Jennie had told him to call up Peter Carsley and ask him to come at once.
    â€˜Can’t get near the phone in the hall,’ grumbled Lewis. ‘There’s generally one of your lot using it, and another telling him to hurry up because he wants to use it, too. Lucky they don’t know about this one.’
    But at last, when Bobby had almost resigned himself to stay there permanently, Mitchell himself strolled in, accompanied by another man to whom he was holding forth at great