Boyd met us in the hall at Moreton Gardens.
“I’ve got Harper and Slade upstairs,” he said, looking quizzically at Lewis.
“You old devil, Monk,” he went on. “I’d jolly well like to know what’s up your jolly old sleeve. The old bull frog upstairs is croaking as if he owned the pond, as usual. Bucked up fearfully by having his advice asked. Oh well, it’s on your head.”
“Need a little new blood in the case,” Lewis said vaguely, as we mounted the stairs.
“ ’sblood enough already,” retorted Boyd. “It’s brains we need.”
Chief Inspector Parker was so much of a type of police detective as to be almost a caricature. Sandy haired, walrus-mustached, with bushy eyebrows and enormous hands and feet, he dominated the scene. His bulky frame completely obscured the mouse-like little man who sat at one
