d
good-humouredly.

The inspector had already made up his mind. He was a man with
many successes to his record, achieved as a result of undoubted
astuteness in connection with the grosser crimes, such as
train-murders, post-office hold-ups and burglaries. He was incapable,
however, of realising that there existed a subtler form of
law-breaking, arising from something more intimately associated with
the psychic than the material plane.

"Did you see Mr. Blade?" enquired Malcolm Sage.

"Saw the whole blessed lot," was the cheery reply. "It's all as
clear as milk," and he laughed.

"What did Mr. Blade say?" enquired Malcolm Sage, looking keenly
across at the inspector.

"Just that he had nothing to say."

"His exact words. Can you remember them?" queried Malcolm Sage.

"Oh, yes!" replied the inspector. "He said, 'Inspector Murdy, I have
nothing to say,' and then he shut up like a real Whitstable."

"He was away yesterday," remarked Malcolm Sage, who then told the
inspector of his visit. "How about John Gray, the schoolmaster?" he
queried.

"He practically told me to go to the devil," was the genial reply.
Inspector Murdy was accustomed to rudeness; his profession invited
it, and to his rough-and-ready form of reasoning, rudeness meant
innocence; politeness guilt.

He handed to Malcolm Sage a copy of a list of people who purchased
"Olympic Script" from Mr. Grainger, the local Whiteley, volunteering
the information that the curate was the biggest consumer, as if that
settled the question of his guilt.

"And yet the vicar would not hear of the arrest of Blade," murmured
Malcolm Sage, turning the copper ash-tray round with his restless
fingers.

The inspector shrugged his massive shoulders.

"Sheer good nature and kindliness, Mr. Sage," he said. "He's as
gentle as a woman."

"I once knew a man," remarked Malcolm Sage, "who said that in the
annals of crime lay the master-key to the world's mysteries, past,
present and to come."

"A dreamer, Mr. Sage," smiled the inspector. "We haven't time for
dreaming at the Yard," he added good-temperedly, as he rose and
shook himself like a Newfoundland dog.

"I suppose it never struck you to look elsewhere than at the
curate's lodgings for the writer of the letters?" enquired Malcolm
Sage quietly.

"It never strikes me to look about for someone when I'm sitting on
his chest," laughed Inspector Murdy.

"True," said Malcolm Sage. "By the way," he continued, without