CHAPTER 9It was in the small hours that Macdonald got back to the room he had taken in the village, but he did not go straight to bed. Far from feeling sleepy, he was particularly alert and intensely interested in the case he was studying. He found that his landlady had thoughtfully left him a kettle and spirit lamp and a tray with teapot, tea and milk, and he boiled the kettle, filled his pipe and settled down at length with a good brew of tea to write up his notes and get his ideas into order.
First Macdonald studied the sheets which Lockersley had handed to him. There is an assumption on the part of many people that poets, painters and musicians are inevitably muddle-minded and impractical persons apart from the art they practice. There was certainly nothing muddled or impractical abou
