第69章

`You will want some conclusive evidence,' came the observation in a murmur.

Chief Inspector Heat raised his eyebrows at the black, narrow back, which remained obstinately presented to his intelligence and his zeal.

`There will be no difficulty in getting up sufficient evidence against him ,' he said, with virtuous complacency.`You may trust me for that, sir,' he added, quite unnecessarily, out of the fullness of his heart;for it seemed to him an excellent thing to have that man in hand to be thrown down to the public should it think fit to roar with any special indignation in this case.It was impossible to say yet whether it would roar or not.That in the last instance depended, of course, on the newspaper press.But in any case, Chief Inspector Heat, purveyor of prisons by trade, and a man of legal instincts, did logically believe that incarceration was the proper fate for every declared enemy of the law.In the strength of that conviction he committed a fault of tact.He allowed himself a little conceited laugh, and repeated:

`Trust me for that, sir.'

This was too much for the forced calmness under which the Assistant Commissioner had for upwards of eighteen months concealed his irritation with the system and the subordinates of his office.A square peg forced into a round hole, he had felt like a daily outrage that long-established smooth roundness into which a man of less sharply angular shape would have fitted himself, with voluptuous acquiescence, after a shrug or two.What he resented most was just the necessity of taking so much on trust.At the little laugh of Chief Inspector-Heat's he spun swiftly on his heels, as if whirled away from the window-pane by an electric shock.He caught on the latter's face not only the complacency proper to the occasion lurking under the moustache, but the vestiges of experimental watchfulness in the round eyes, which had been, no doubt, fastened on his back, and now met his glance for a second before the intent character of their stare had the time to change to a merely startled appearance.

The Assistant Commissioner of Police had really some qualifications for his post.Suddenly his suspicion was awakened.It is but fair to say that his suspicions of the police methods (unless the police happened to be a semi-military body organized by himself) was not difficult to arouse.

If it ever slumbered from sheer weariness, it was but lightly: and his appreciation of Chief Inspector Heat's zeal and ability, moderate in itself, excluded all notion of moral confidence.`He's up to something,' he exclaimed, mentally, and at once became angry.Crossing over to his desk with headlong strides, he sat down violently.`Here I am stuck in a litter of paper,'

he reflected, with unreasonable resentment, `supposed to hold all the threads in my hands and yet I can but hold what is put in my hand, and nothing else.And they can fasten the other ends of the threads where they please.

He raised his head, and turned towards his subordinate a long, meagre face with the accentuated features of an energetic Don Quixote.

`Now what is it you've got up your sleeve?'

The other stared.He stared without winking in a perfect immobility of his round eyes, as he was used to stare at the various members of the criminal class when, after being duly cautioned, they made their statements in the tones of injured innocence, or false simplicity, or sullen resignation.

But behind that professional and stony fixity there was some surprise, too, for in such a tone, combining nicely the note of contempt and impatience, Chief Inspector Heat, the right-hand man of the department, was not used to be addressed.He began in a procrastinating manner, like a man taken unawares by a new and unexpected experience.

`What I've got against that man Michaelis you mean, sir?'

The Assistant Commissioner watched the bullet head; the points of that Norse rover's moustache, falling below the line of the heavy jaw; the whole full and pale physiognomy, whose determined character was marred by too much flesh; at the cunning wrinkles radiating from the outer corners of the eyes - and in that purposeful contemplation of the valuable and trusted officer he drew a conviction so sudden that it moved him like an inspiration.

`I have reason to think that when you came into this room,' he said in measured tones, `it was not Michaelis who was in your mind; not principally - perhaps not at all.'

`You have reason to think, sir?' muttered Chief Inspector Heat with every appearance of astonishment, which up to a certain point was genuine enough.He had discovered in this affair a delicate and perplexing side, forcing upon the discoverer a certain amount of insincerity - that sort of insincerity which, under the names of skill, prudence, discretion, turns up at one point or another in most human affairs.He felt at the moment like a tight-rope artist might feel if suddenly, in the middle of the performance, the manager of the Music Hall were to rush out of the proper managerial seclusion and begin to shake the rope.Indignation, the sense of moral insecurity engendered by such a treacherous proceeding joined to the immediate apprehension of a broken neck, would, in the colloquial phrase, put him in a state.And there would be also some scandalized concern for his art, too, since a man must identify himself with something more tangible than his own personality, and establish his pride somewhere, either in his social position, or in the quality of the work he is obliged to do, or simply in the superiority of the idleness he may be fortunate enough to enjoy.

`Yes,' said the Assistant Commissioner; `I have.I do not mean to say that you have not thought of Michaelis at all.But you are giving the fact you've mentioned a prominence which strikes me as not quite candid, Inspector Heat.If that is really the track of discovery, why haven't you followed it up at once, either personally or by sending one of your men to that village?'