ds. Then he said perfunctorily: "You have set inquiries on
foot for tracing that other man up and down the line?"

He had no doubt that everything needful had been done. Chief Inspector
Heat knew, of course, thoroughly the business of man-hunting. And these
were the routine steps, too, that would be taken as a matter of course by
the merest beginner. A few inquiries amongst the ticket collectors and
the porters of the two small railway stations would give additional
details as to the appearance of the two men; the inspection of the
collected tickets would show at once where they came from that morning.
It was elementary, and could not have been neglected. Accordingly the
Chief Inspector answered that all this had been done directly the old
woman had come forward with her deposition. And he mentioned the name of
a station. "That's where they came from, sir," he went on. "The porter
who took the tickets at Maze Hill remembers two chaps answering to the
description passing the barrier. They seemed to him two respectable
working men of a superior sort--sign painters or house decorators. The
big man got out of a third-class compartment backward, with a bright tin
can in his hand. On the platform he gave it to carry to the fair young
fellow who followed him. All this agrees exactly with what the old woman
told the police sergeant in Greenwich."

The Assistant Commissioner, still with his face turned to the window,
expressed his doubt as to these two men having had anything to do with
the outrage. All this theory rested upon the utterances of an old
charwoman who had been nearly knocked down by a man in a hurry. Not a
very substantial authority indeed, unless on the ground of sudden
inspiration, which was hardly tenable.

"Frankly now, could she have been really inspired?" he queried, with
grave irony, keeping his back to the room, as if entranced by the
contemplation of the town's colossal forms half lost in the night. He
did not even look round when he heard the mutter of the word
"Providential" from the principal subordinate of his department, whose
name, printed sometimes in the papers, was familiar to the great public
as that of one of its zealous and hard-working protectors. Chief
Inspector Heat raised his voice a little.

"Strips and bits of bright tin were quite visible to me," he said.
"That's a pretty good corroboration."

"And these men came from that little country station," the Assistant
Commi