“I did not.”

Major Milligan dreamed that night that Death Bredon, in his harlequin dress, was hanging him for the murder of Lord Peter Wimsey.

Chief-Inspector Parker continued to be disturbed in his mind. There had been another fiasco in Essex. A private motor-boat, suspected of being concerned in the drug-traffic, had been seized and searched without result-except, of course, the undesired result of giving the alarm to the parties concerned, if they were concerned. Further, a fast car, which had attracted attention by its frequent midnight excursions from the coast to the capital, had been laboriously tracked to its destination, and proved to belong to a distinguished member of the diplomatic corps, engaged on extremely incognito visits to a lady established in a popular seaside resort. Mr. Parker, still incapacitated from personal attendance upon midnight expeditions, was left with the gloomy satisfaction of saying that everything always went wrong when he wasn’t there himself. He was also unreasonably annoyed with Wimsey, as the original cause of his incapacity.

Nor had the investigation at the White Swan so far borne very much fruit. For a week in succession, tactful and experienced policemen had draped themselves over its bar, chatting to all and sundry about greyhounds, goats, parrots and other dumb friends of man, without receiving any return in the shape of mysterious packets.

The old man with the parrot-story had been traced easily enough. He was an habitué. He sat there every morning and every afternoon, and had a fund of such stories. The patient police made a collection of them. The proprietor-against whose character nothing could be proved-knew this customer well. He was a superannuated Covent Garden porter, who lived on an old-age pension, and every corner of his inoffensive life was open to the day. This excellent old gentleman, when questioned, recalled the conversation with Mr. Hector Puncheon, but was positive that he had never seen any of the party before, except the two carters, whom he knew well enough. These men also agreed that the gentleman in dress clothes and the little man who had talked about greyhounds were equally unknown to them. It was not, however, unusual for gentlemen in dress clothes to drop in at the Swan by way of a good finish to a lively night-or for gentlemen without dress clothes, either. Nothing threw any light on the mystery of the packet of cocaine.

Parker was, however, roused to some enthusiasm by Wimsey’s report of his conversations with Milligan.

“What incredible luck you do have, Peter. People who, in the ordinary way, would avoid you like the plague, gatecrash into your parties at the psychological moment and offer you their noses to lead them by.”

“Not so much luck, old man,” said Wimsey. “Good guidance, that’s all. I sent the fair Dian an anonymous letter, solemnly warning her against myself and informing her that if she wanted to know the worst about me, she had only to inquire at my brother’s address. It’s a curious thing, but people cannot resist anonymous letters. It’s like free sample offers. They appeal to all one’s lower instincts.”

“You are a devil,” said Parker. “One of these days you’ll get into trouble. Suppose Milligan had recognized you.”

“I prepared his mind to accept a striking resemblance.”

“I wonder he didn’t see through it. Family resemblances don’t usually extend to details of teeth and so on.”

“I never let him get close enough to study details.”

“That ought to have made him suspicious.”

“No, because I was rude to him about it. He believed me all the time, simply because I was rude. Everybody suspects an eager desire to curry favour, but rudeness, for some reason, is always accepted as a guarantee of good faith. The only man who ever managed to see through rudeness was St. Augustine, and I don’t suppose Milligan reads the Confessions. Besides, he wanted to believe in me. He’s greedy.”

“Well, no doubt you know your own business. But about this Victor Dean affair. Do you really believe that the head of this particular dope-gang is on Pym’s staff? It sounds quite incredible.”

“That’s an excellent reason for believing it. I don’t mean in a credo quia impossible sense, but merely because the staff of a respectable advertising agency would be such an excellent hiding-place for a big crook. The particular crookedness of advertising is so very far removed from the crookedness of dope-trafficking.”

“Why? As far as I can make out, all advertisers are dope-merchants.”

“So they are. Yes, now I come to think of it, there is a subtle symmetry about the thing which is extremely artistic. All the same, Charles, I must admit that I find it difficult to go the whole way with Milligan. I have carefully reviewed the staff of Pym’s, and I have so far failed to find any one who looks in the least like a Napoleon of crime.”

“But you seem convinced that the murder of Victor Dean was an inside job. Or do you now think that some stranger was hiding on the roof and did away with Dean because he was on the point of splitting on the gang? I suppose an outsider could get access to Pym’s roof?”

“Oh, easily. But that wouldn’t explain the catapult in Mrs. Johnson’s desk.”

“Nor the attack on me.”

“Not if the same person that killed Dean attacked you too.”

“Meaning that it might have been Willis? I take it that Willis is not the Napoleon of crime, anyhow.”

“Willis isn’t a Napoleon of anything. Nor, I fancy, is the chap with the catapult. If he had been, he’d have had the common sense to use his own catapult and burn it afterwards. As I see him, he is a person of considerable ingenuity but limited foresight; a person who snatches at the first thing that is offered him and does his best with it, but lacks just that little extra bit of consideration that would make the thing a real success. He lies from hand to mouth, as you may say. I dare say I could spot him without much difficulty-but that’s not what you want, is it? You’d rather have the Napoleon of the dope-traffic, wouldn’t you? If he exists, that is.”

“Certainly I should,” said Parker, emphatically.

“That’s what I thought. What, if you come to think of it, is a trifle like an odd murder or assault, compared with a method of dope-running that baffles Scotland Yard? Nothing at all.”

“It isn’t, really,” replied Parker, seriously. “Dope-runners are murderers, fifty times over. They slay hundreds of people, soul and body, besides indirectly causing all sorts of crimes among the victims. Compared with that, slugging one inconsiderable pip-squeak over the head is almost meritorious.”

“Really, Charles! for a man of your religious upbringing, your outlook is positively enlightened.”

“Not so irreligious, either. Fear not him that killeth, but him that hath power to cast into hell. How about it?”

“How indeed? Hang the one and give the other a few weeks in jail-or, if of good social position, bind him over or put him on remand for six months under promise of good behaviour.”

Parker made a wry mouth.

“I know, old man, I know. But where would be the good of hanging the wretched victims or the smaller fry? There would always be others. We want the top people. Take even this man, Milligan, who’s a pest of the first water-with no excuse for it, because he isn’t an addict himself-but suppose we punish him here and now. They’d only start again, with a new distributor and a new house for him to run his show in, and what would anybody gain by that?”

“Exactly,” said Wimsey. “And how much better off will you be, even if you catch the man above Milligan? The same thing will apply.”

Parker made a hopeless gesture.

“I don’t know, Peter. It’s no good worrying about it. My job is to catch the heads of the gangs if I can, and, after that, as many as possible of the little people. I can’t overthrow cities and burn the population.”