"Yes, I got hold of a certain amount," Hannasyde replied. "Glass could find no trace of the weapon at Greystones, though, which is disappointing."
"He was probably too busy holding prayer meetings with himself to have time to look for the weapon," said the Sergeant. "How's he doing? I can see he's going to be my cross all right."
"As far as I can gather, you're likely to be his," said Hannasyde, with the ghost of a smile. "He made a somewhat obscure reference to forward hearts and perverse tongues which I took to mean you."
"He did, did he? Ah well, the only wonder to me is he didn't call me a hissing and an abomination. I daresay he will yet. I don't mind him reciting his pieces, though it isn't strictly in accordance with discipline, as long as he doesn't take it into his silly head I've got to be saved. I've been saved once, and that's enough for me. Too much!" he added, remembering certain features of this event. "Nasty little tracts about Lost Sheep, and the Evils of Drink," he explained. "It's a funny thing, but whenever you come up against any of these reforming chaps they always have it fixed in their minds you must be a walking lump of vice. You can't persuade 'em otherwise either. What you might call a Fixation."
Hannasyde, who knew that the Sergeant's study of his favourite subject had led his adventurous feet into a strange realm of bastard words and lurid theories, intervened hastily, and asked for an account of his day's labours.
"Well, it's been interesting, but like what Glass said about me: obscure," said the Sergeant. "Taking our friend Abraham Budd first, we come to the first unexpected feature of the case. When I got up to Headquarters this morning, what should I find but his lordship waiting for me on the mat."
"Budd?" said Hannasyde. "Do you mean he came here?"
"That's right, Chief. Came along as soon as he'd read the news in the evening paper. They'll start getting the evening editions out before breakfast soon, if you ask me. Anyway, Mr. Budd had his copy tucked under his arm, and was just oozing helpfulness."
"Do get on!" said Hannasyde. "Does he know something, or what?"
"Not so as you'd notice," responded the Sergeant. "According to him, he left the house by way of the garden-gate at about 9.35 p.m."
"That tallies with Mrs. North's account, at all events!" said Hannasyde.
"Oh, so you got something there, did you, Super?"
"Yes, but go on with your report. If Budd left at 9.35 he can't have seen anything, I suppose. What did he come to Scotland Yard for?"
"Funk," said the Sergeant tersely. "I've been reading a whole lot about causations, and that naturally made it as plain as a pikestaff to me -'
"Cut out the causations! What's Budd got to be frightened of? And don't hand me anything about Early Frustrations or Inhibitions, because I'm not interested! If you knew what you were talking about I could bear it, but you don't."
The Sergeant, accustomed to this lack of sympathy, merely sighed, and said with unimpaired good humour: "Well, I haven't, so far, got to the bottom of Mr. Budd's trouble. He calls himself an outside broker, and, by what I can make out, the late Ernest was in the habit of using him as a kind of cover-man every time he wanted to put through any deals which, strictly speaking, he oughtn't to have put through. At least, that's the way it looked to me, putting two and two together, and making allowances for a bit of coyness on friend Budd's part."
"I'd gathered that he was a broker. There are one or two copies of letters to him amongst Fletcher's papers, and a few of his replies. I haven't had time yet to go through them carefully. What took him down to see Fletcher at nine o'clock at night?"
"That's where the narrative got what you might call abstruse," replied the Sergeant. "Nor, if you was to ask me, should I say that I actually believed all that Budd told me. Sweating very freely, he was. But then, it's been a hot day, and he's a fleshy man. However, the gist of it was that owing to the difficulty of hearing very well over the telephone there was some sort of misunderstanding about some highly confidential instructions issued by the late Ernest in - er - a still more highly confidential deal. Our Mr. Budd, not wishing to entrust any more of this hush-hush business to the telephone, went off to see the late Ernest in person."
"It sounds very fishy," said Hannasyde.
"That's nothing to what it smelt like," said the Sergeant. "I had to open the window. But bearing in mind that the man we're after isn't Budd, I didn't press the matter much. What I did see fit to ask him, though, was whether the aforesaid misunderstanding had led to any unpleasantness with the late Ernest."
Hannasyde nodded. "Quite right. What did he say?"
"Oh, he behaved as though I was his Father Confessor!" said the Sergeant. That may have been on account of my nice, kind personality, or, on the other hand, it may not. But he opened right out like a poppy in the sun."
"I can do without these poetical flights," said Hannasyde.
Just as you say, Chief. Anyway, he took me right to his bosom. Fairly oozed natural oil, and what I took to be highly unnatural frankness. He didn't keep a thing from me - nothing I'd already got wind of, at any rate. There was a little unpleasantness, due to the late Ernest's having assumed that certain of his instructions had been acted on, which, owing to the telephone and one thing and another, they hadn't been. However, once the late Ernest had got over his naughty temper, all became jake again, and they parted like brothers."
"Oh!" said Hannasyde. "Quite plausible. It might be true."
"Yes, but I'll tell you a funny thing," said the Sergeant. "I've been swotting flies all day, but the whole time little Abraham was with me I never saw a fly settle on him, not once."
"Oh!" said Hannasyde again. "Like that, is he?"
"Yes," replied the Sergeant. "He is. What's more, Super, though you and I may not see eye to eye about Psychology, I know when a man's got the wind up. Little Abraham was having quite a job to keep his feet down on the ground. But I'm bound to say he did it. He answered all my questions before I'd even had time to ask them, too. Gave me a word-picture of his state of mind when he read about the late Ernest's death that was a masterpiece. First you could have knocked him down with a feather; then he thought, why, it must have happened not half-an-hour after he had left the late Ernest. After that he hoped he wouldn't get mixed up in it, and from there it was only a matter of seconds before he remembered handing the late Ernest's butler his card; and, on top of that, having Ernest address him in a loud and angry voice. Finally, it struck him like a thunder-clap that the late Ernest had shown him out by the side gate, so that no other person had witnessed his departure. Having assembled all these facts, he perceived that he was in a very compromising situation, and the only thing to be done was to come straight round to the kind police, whom he was brought up to look upon as his best friends."
Hannasyde was frowning. "It's almost too plausible. What did you do?"
"Gave him a piece of toffee, and sent him home to his mother," answered the Sergeant promptly.
Hannasyde, who knew his Sergeant, apparently approved of this somewhat unorthodox conduct, for he said: "Yes, about the best thing you could do. He'll keep. Now, what about this Charlie Carpenter you spoke of over the telephone?"
The Sergeant abandoned flippancy for the moment. "A packet!" he said. "That's where we come on the second unexpected feature of this case. As a matter of fact, I thought we were going to draw a blank on those fingerprints. But this is what we've got." He picked up a folder from the desk as he spoke, and handed it to his superior. It contained a portrait of a young man, two sets of photographed finger-prints, and a brief, unsentimental record of the latter career of one Charlie Carpenter, aged twenty-nine years, measuring five feet nine inches, weighing eleven stone six pounds, having light-brown hair, grey eyes, and no distinguishing birth-marks.