Chief Inspector Heat.

"No, that was not my thought," he began again. "There is no doubt about
you knowing your business--no doubt at all; and that's precisely why I--"
He stopped short, and changing his tone: "What could you bring up against
Michaelis of a definite nature? I mean apart from the fact that the two
men under suspicion--you're certain there were two of them--came last
from a railway station within three miles of the village where Michaelis
is living now."

"This by itself is enough for us to go upon, sir, with that sort of man,"
said the Chief Inspector, with returning composure. The slight approving
movement of the Assistant Commissioner's head went far to pacify the
resentful astonishment of the renowned officer. For Chief Inspector Heat
was a kind man, an excellent husband, a devoted father; and the public
and departmental confidence he enjoyed acting favourably upon an amiable
nature, disposed him to feel friendly towards the successive Assistant
Commissioners he had seen pass through that very room. There had been
three in his time. The first one, a soldierly, abrupt, red-faced person,
with white eyebrows and an explosive temper, could be managed with a
silken thread. He left on reaching the age limit. The second, a perfect
gentleman, knowing his own and everybody else's place to a nicety, on
resigning to take up a higher appointment out of England got decorated
for (really) Inspector Heat's services. To work with him had been a
pride and a pleasure. The third, a bit of a dark horse from the first,
was at the end of eighteen months something of a dark horse still to the
department. Upon the whole Chief Inspector Heat believed him to be in
the main harmless--odd-looking, but harmless. He was speaking now, and
the Chief Inspector listened with outward deference (which means nothing,
being a matter of duty) and inwardly with benevolent toleration.

"Michaelis reported himself before leaving London for the country?"

"Yes, sir. He did."

"And what may he be doing there?" continued the Assistant Commissioner,
who was perfectly informed on that point. Fitted with painful tightness
into an old wooden arm-chair, before a worm-eaten oak table in an
upstairs room of a four-roomed cottage with a roof of moss-grown tiles,
Michaelis was writing night and day in a shaky, slanting hand that
"Autobiography of a Prisoner" which was to be like a book of Revelation
in the history of mankind. The condi