wallet, an automatic lighter and a fountain pen; and an expression of outraged astonishment came over his face.
' 'Ere,' he said suspiciously. 'What 've you done with that gun?'
'What gun?' asked the Saint puzzledly. 'You don't think I'd carry a gun in a suit like this, do you? I've got too much respect for my tailor. Anderson would be horrified and Sheppard would probably throw a fit.'
'Search his hip pockets, you fool,' snarled Mr Teal. 'And under his armpits. That's where he's most likely to have it.'
'And don't tickle,' said the Saint severely, 'It makes me go all girlish.'
Breathing heavily, the sergeant searched as instructed and continued to find nothing.
Simon lowered his arms.
'After which little formality,' he said amiably, 'let us get back to business. As I was tactfully trying to mention, Claud, there seems to be a sort of corpse lying about on the floor. Do you think we ought to do something about it, or shall we shove it into the bathroom and pretend we haven't seen it?'
Chief Inspector Teal's lower jaw moved in a ponderous surge like the first lurch of the pistons of a locomotive getting under way as he dislodged a forgotten bolus of chewing gum from behind his wisdom teeth. The purple tinge was dying out of his face, allowing it to revert a little closer to its normal chubby pink. The negative results of the sergeant's search had almost thrown him back on his heels, but the shock had something homeopathic in its effect. It had jarred him into taking one wild superhuman clutch at the vanishing tail of his self-control; and now he found himself clinging on to it with the frenzied fervour of a man who has inadvertently taken hold of the steering end of a starving alligator.
Behind him, while the search was proceeding, a number of other persons had sidled cautiously into the room—a melancholy plain-clothes sergeant, a bald-headed man with a camera, a small sandy man with a black bag, a constable in uniform. To the experienced eye, they identified themselves as the members of a C.I.D. murder squad as unmistakably as if they had been labelled.
Simon had watched their entrance with interest. He was doing some rapid reconstruction of his own. Mr Teal's advent had been far too flabbergastingly apt to be pure coincidence; and the presence of that compact covey of supporters was extra confirmation of the fact. Even chief inspectors didn't go forth with a retinue of that kind unless they were on a particular and major assignment. And Simon located the origin of the assignment a moment later in the shape of a fat blowzy woman with stringy gray hair who was hovering nervously in the least-exposed part of the background.
Teal turned and looked for her.
'Have you seen this man before ?' he demanded.
She gulped.
'N-no. But I bet 'e done it, just the sime. 'E looks just like one o' them narsty capitalists as pore Mr Windlay was always talkin' abaht.'
Simon's gaze rested on her.
'Do you live in these parts?' he inquired politely.
She bridled.
'This 'ere is my property, young man, so you mind yer tongue. I come 'ere every week to collect the rent, not that I 'aven't wasted me time coming 'ere the larst two weeks.'
'You came here today and found the body?'
'Yes, I did.'
