collar. Funny the old woman should have noticed the velvet collar.
Dark blue overcoat with a velvet collar, she has told us. He was the chap she
saw, and no mistake. And here he is all complete, velvet collar and all. I don't
think I missed a single piece as big as a postage stamp.«
    At this point the trained faculties of the Chief Inspector ceased to hear
the voice of the constable. He moved to one of the windows for better light. His
face, averted from the room, expressed a startled, intense interest while he
examined closely the triangular piece of broadcloth. By a sudden jerk he
detached it, and only after stuffing it into his pocket turned round to the
room, and flung the velvet collar back on the table.
    »Cover up,« he directed the attendants, curtly, without another look, and,
saluted by the constable, carried off his spoil hastily.
    A convenient train whirled him up to town, alone and pondering deeply, in a
third-class compartment. That singed piece of cloth was incredibly valuable, and
he could not defend himself from astonishment at the casual manner it had come
into his possession. It was as if Fate had thrust that clue into his hands. And
after the manner of the average man, whose ambition is to command events, he
began to mistrust such a gratuitous and accidental success - just because it
seemed forced upon him. The practical value of success depends not a little on
the way you look at it. But Fate looks at nothing. It has no discretion. He no
longer considered it eminently desirable all round to establish publicly the
identity of the man who had blown himself up that morning with such horrible
completeness. But he was not certain of the view his department would take. A
department is to those it employs a complex personality with ideas and even fads
of its own. It depends on the loyal devotion of its servants, and the devoted
loyalty of trusted servants is associated with a certain amount of affectionate
contempt, which keeps it sweet, as it were. By a benevolent provision of Nature
no man is a hero to his valet, or else the heroes would have to brush their own
clothes. Likewise no department appears perfectly wise to the intimacy of its
workers. A department does not know so much as some of its servants. Being a
dispassionate organism, it can never be perfectly informed. It would not be good
for its efficiency to know too much. Chief Inspector Heat got out of the train
in a state of thoughtfulness entirely untainted with disloyalty,