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