If I had expected Inspector Harper to gloat over his triumph over the younger man and the “private,” I had underestimated him. Not for nothing had he risen by sheer force of ability and hard work from a constable’s beat. He knew the ordinary criminal, I imagine, like a nursery rhyme; they were so much red tape to be got through with before they began their sentences. At this point in the present affair, he showed nothing but the most earnest desire, expressed in throaty shouts, to determine upon the correct solution of the appalling events of the past week.
“Let’s forget all our fine theories now, and look at the evidence of this room,” he rasped. “When you opened that door, Boyd, what’d you see?”
“Scoville hunched forward in his chair over the table, his right hand flung forward, a revo
