“We’ll see,” he said. “Perhaps when I’ve thought this out, we shall be wanting a warrant for something more serious than bigamy.”

“Then you think I may have been right about Eales after all?”

“No, I don’t!” roared the inspector, exasperated. “I don’t think anything yet. I’m only asking you to go away and let me think!” And Frant found himself fairly hustled out of the room.

“Thinking seems to be a whole-time occupation for some people,” was the sergeant’s unspoken comment as he left. “And I’m prepared to bet that the first thing he does is to go out and make a pig of himself over lunch.”

Frant did not return for some hours. When at length he again walked along the corridor that led to Mallett’s room, it was with the long, impatient strides of a bearer of good news. He knocked at the door, and, receiving no answer, entered at once. The words he was already framing died away in an exclamation of surprise and disgust. His superior officer was lying back in his chair, his eyes closed, his feet miraculously poised on an overturned waste-paper basket which seemed to be on the verge of crumpling beneath their weight, his great body stirring gently and rhythmically with the deep-taken breaths of sleep.

Exactly when Mallett woke up, Frant could not say. He was only gradually aware, as he looked down on him, that he was being scrutinized from under half-closed eyelids, that the corners of the mouth had twisted slightly into a friendly, almost mischievous grin. This stage lasted for a few seconds only, and then, quite suddenly, the whole man started to life at once. With a convulsive jerk the inspector sat up abruptly in his chair, his feet under him, his eyes wide open. The waste-paper basket was sent spinning across the room by the sudden movement until it was brought up short by the opposite wall. There it remained, the sole witness to an unfortunate lapse in the career of an exemplary officer.

It was an embarrassing moment for the sergeant, whose genuine respect for Mallett reinforced the dictates of discipline in constraining him to do his best to look as though nothing unusual had happened. But Mallett remained genially unashamed.

“Do you know,” he said with the air of one imparting a deep confidence, “I was almost asleep when you came in? I was tired,” he added, somewhat unnecessarily.

The agreeable smile had not left his lips, and this emboldened Frant to ask, with a touch of malice: “Did you have a good lunch?”

“I haven’t had any,” was the surprising reply. “Is it late?”

“Nearly three o’clock.”

“Good lord! Well, it can’t be helped. Now tell me what you’ve been doing.”