with, but also
exceedingly efficient in his work."

Willis asked a number of other questions--harmless questions, easily
answered about the syndicate and Coburn's work, ending up with an
expression of thanks for the other's trouble and an invitation to
adjourn for a drink.

Beamish accepting, the inspector led the way to the first-class
refreshment room and approached the counter opposite the barmaid whose
acquaintance he had made the previous day.

"Two small whiskies, please," he ordered, having asked his companion's
choice.

The girl placed the two small tumblers of yellow liquid before her
customers and Willis added a little water to each.

"Well, here's yours," he said, and raising his glass to his lips,
drained the contents at a draught. Captain Beamish did the same.

The inspector's offer of a second drink having been declined, the two
men left the refreshment room, still chatting about the murdered man.
Ten minutes later Captain Beamish saw the inspector off in the London
train. But he did not know that in the van of that train there was a
parcel, labelled to "Inspector Willis, passenger to Doncaster by
4.0 p.m.," which contained a small tumbler, smelling of whisky, and
carefully packed up so as to prevent the sides from being rubbed.

The inspector was the next thing to excited when, some time later, he
locked the door of his bedroom in the Stag's Head Hotel at Doncaster
and, carefully unpacking the tumbler, he took out his powdering
apparatus and examined it for prints. With satisfaction he found his
little ruse had succeeded. The glass bore clearly defined marks of a
right thumb and two fingers.

Eagerly he compared the prints with those he had found on the taxi
call-tube. And then he suffered disappointment keen and deep. The two
sets were dissimilar.

So his theory had been wrong, and Captain Beamish was not the murderer
after all! He realized now that he had been much more convinced of
its truth than he had had any right to be, and his chagrin was
correspondingly greater. He had indeed been so sure that Beamish was his
man that he had failed sufficiently to consider other possibilities, and
now he found himself without any alternative theory to fall back on.

But he remained none the less certain that Coburn's death was due to
his effort to break with the syndicate, and that it was to the syndicate
that he must look for light on the matter. There were other members of
it--he knew of two, Arch