Chapter 14
THE INVESTIGATION of crime offers little scope for gallantry. In his moments of introspection Mr. Dene was wont to admit as much with a sigh. In the service of Scotland Yard he had had to buy his experience like everybody else. It had taught him, among other things, to take a sternly realistic view of women and their relationship to the social scheme. He had learnt, for instance, that lovely ladies, whose doings are the subject of interest to the police, are surprisingly ready to succumb to the minion of the law, even if the said minion has red hair and spectacles:— the lovelier, the readier. They couldn’t kid him! What was the name of that perfectly charming girl in the manslaughter charge at Wembley— she had killed an old man with her car— who had suggested perjury to the you
