several occasions that he had heard sounds of wild laughter and rowdy
singing coming from Riversbrook as he passed along the street on his beat
in the small hours of the morning. Several times in the early dawn Flack
had seen two or three ladies in evening dress come down the carriage
drive and enter a taxi-cab which had been summoned by telephone.




CHAPTER IV


When Rolfe had finished questioning Police-Constable Flack and joined his
chief upstairs, the latter, who had been going through the private papers
in the murdered man's desk in the hope of alighting on a clue to the
crime, received him genially.

"Well," he said, "what do you think of Flack?"

Rolfe had obtained from the police-constable a straightforward story of
what he had seen, and in this way had picked up some useful information
about the crime which it would have taken a long time to extract from the
inspector, but he was a sufficiently good detective to have learned that
by disparaging the source of your information you add to your own
reputation for acumen in drawing conclusions in regard to it. He nodded
his head in a deprecating way and emitted a slight cough which was meant
to express contempt.

"It looks very much like a case of burglary and murder," he said.