CHAPTER XIVBy the time Macdonald reached him, Mr. Thomas Burroughs had about reached the end of his tether. Neither obstinacy (and he was by nature obstinate), nor devotion (and he was very devoted indeed), were proof against the undermining effects of two nights spent in detention in a police station. He had had plenty of time to reflect on the exceedingly nasty nature of the hole in which he was placed, and his solicitor had done nothing to comfort him. That exceedingly competent legal luminary had indeed betrayed a consternation which had made Burroughs feel cold in the pit of his stomach. To have been caught investigating premises in which a murder had occurred, and, in addition, “to have resisted the police in the execution of their duties,” was, he was given to understand, as nasty a
