Chapter 12Ex-Inspector Blest set his glass on Mr. Campion’s desk and reached for a cigarette from the silver box beside it. The study in the Bottle Street flat was warm and quiet. Outside, the blue dusk was beginning to fall over the city and from Piccadilly the quiet snoring of the traffic came soothingly up to them.
The ex-inspector was a large sandy man with raw red ears and boundless good nature lurking shyly behind a defensive bluster. At the moment his pride was in the process of slow recovery.
“I don’t mind working with you or even for you,” he said. “I didn’t care for him going over my head. That’s all. He’s a queer sort of chap, isn’t he? I don’t really like him. Too ‘I’m-so-busy-get-out-of-my-light.’ If he’s overworked why doesn’t he take a job his own size? I’ve got no time fo
