reer that young
detectives are always inclined to make too much of their own discoveries.
Perhaps I was myself, when I was young and inexperienced. Now, as to this
handkerchief: what is more likely than that Birchill had it in his pocket
when he went out to Riversbrook on that fatal night? He was living in
the flat with this girl Fanning: what was more natural than that he
should pick up a handkerchief off the floor that the girl had dropped and
put it in his pocket with the intention of giving it to her when she
returned to the room? Instead of doing so he forgot all about it. When he
shot Sir Horace Fewbanks he put his hand into his pocket for a
handkerchief to wipe his forehead or his hands--it was a hot night, and I
take it that a man who has killed another doesn't feel as cool as a
cucumber. While stooping over his victim with the handkerchief still in
his hand, the dying man made a convulsive movement and caught hold of a
corner of the handkerchief, which was torn off." Inspector Chippenfield
looked across at his subordinate with a smile of triumphant superiority.

"Yes," said Rolfe meditatively. "There is nothing wrong about that as far
as I can see. But I would like to know for certain how it got there."

Inspector Chippenfield was satisfied with his subordinate's testimony to
his perspicacity.

"That is all right, Rolfe," he said in a tone of kindly banter. "But
don't make the mistake of regarding your idle curiosity as a virtue.
After the trial, if you are still curious on the point, I have no
doubt Birchill will tell you. He is sure to make a confession before
he is hanged."

But it was more a spirit of idle curiosity than anything else that
brought Rolfe to Crewe's chambers in Holborn an hour later. Having
secured the murderer, he felt curious as to what Crewe's feelings were on
his defeat. It was the first occasion that he had been on a case which
Crewe had been commissioned to investigate, and he was naturally pleased
that Inspector Chippenfield and he had arrested the author of the crime
while Crewe was all at sea. It was plain from the fact that the latter
had thought it necessary to visit Scotland that he had got on a false
scent. It was not Scotland, but Scotland Yard that Crewe should have
visited, Rolfe said to himself with a smile.

Crewe, in pursuance of his policy of keeping on the best of terms with
the police, gave Rolfe a very friendly welcome. He produced from a
cupboard two glasses, a de