Alleyn walked slowly down Wigmore Street. He reflected that in some ways his last interview had been one of the oddest in his experience. What a curious little man! There had been no affectation in that scientific outburst. The inspector could recognise genuine enthusiasm when he met it. Roberts was in a blue funk over the O’Callaghan business, yet the mere mention of his pet subject could drive any feeling of personal danger clean out of his head. “He’s very worried about something, though,” thought Alleyn, “and it rather looks as though it’s Phillips. Phillips! Damn. I want my Boswell. Also, I want my dinner.”

He walked to Frascati’s and dined alone, staring so fixedly at the tablecloth that his waiter grew quite nervous about it. Then he rang up Fox and gave him certain instructions, after which he took a taxi to Chester Terrace to call on his Boswell.

“And I suppose the young ass will be out,” thought Alleyn bitterly.

But Nigel Bathgate was at home. When the front door opened Alleyn heard the brisk patter of a typewriter. He walked sedately upstairs, pushed open the sitting-room door and looked in. There was Nigel, seated bloomily at his machine, with a pile of copy-paper in a basket beside it.

“Hullo, Bathgate,” said Alleyn. “Busy?”

Nigel jumped, turned in his chair, and then grinned. “You!” he said happily. “I’m glad to see you, inspector. Take a pew.”

He pushed forward a comfortable chair and clapped down a cigarette-box on the broad arm. The telephone rang. Nigel cursed and answered it. “Hullo!” A beatific change came over him. “Good evening, darling.” Alleyn smiled. “Who do you imagine I’ve got here? An old friend of yours. Inspector Alleyn. Yes. Why not hop into a taxi and pay us a visit? You will? Splendid. He’s probably in difficulties and wants our help. Yes. Right.” He hung up the receiver and turned, beaming, to Alleyn.

“It’s Angela,” he said. Miss Angela North was Nigel’s betrothed.

“So I imagined,” remarked the inspector. “I shall be delighted to see the minx again.”

“She’s thrilled at the prospect herself,” Nigel declared. He made up the fire, glanced anxiously at his desk and made an effort to tidy it.

“I’ve just been writing you up,” he informed Alleyn.

“What the devil do you mean? What have I got to do with your perverted rag?”

“We’re hard up for a story and you’ve got a certain news value, you know. ‘The case is in the hands of Chief Detective-Inspector Roderick Alleyn, the most famous crime expert of the C.I.D. Inspector Alleyn is confident—’ Are you confident, by the way?”

“Change it to ‘inscrutable.’ When I’m boxed I fall back on inscrutability.”

“Are you boxed?” asked Nigel. “That, of course, is why you’ve come to me. What can I do for you, inspector?”