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veteran of the Boer Wars, was found instructing a squad of recruits in one of the wooden classrooms that had been hurriedly constructed to cope with the influx of recruits that this latest war – and Lord Kitchener’s pointing finger – had brought about.
    The appearance of Captain McIntyre in the doorway immediately produced a roar from Finch for the recruits to come to attention.
    As the young soldiers leaped to their feet, one unfortunate who was seated behind a Lewis gun, managed to knock it over in his haste.
    â€˜Mind what you’re doing with that bloody thing, you stupid oaf,’ roared Finch. ‘We can get plenty more soldiers, but Lewis guns are hard to come by. Do it again and I’ll tear off your arm and beat you to death with the soggy end.’ He swivelled on his left heel, crashed his ammunition boots on the wooden floor to assume a position of attention, and saluted. ‘Sah!’ he yelled.
    â€˜Stand easy, lads,’ said McIntyre, and beckoning to Finch, he said, ‘Just step outside, Sarn’t Finch.’
    â€˜Sah!’ yelled Finch again, and followed the military police officer into the corridor.
    â€˜These two gentlemen are from the civil police, Sarn’t Finch.’
    â€˜Yes, sir. Very good, sir.’
    â€˜They want to know about Private Stacey. He tells me that he was under training with you yesterday morning.’
    Finch unbuttoned one of his tunic pockets and withdrew a sheet of paper. After a moment or two spent in perusing the document, he looked up. ‘Yes, sir. Correct, sir. An idle man, sir.’
    McIntyre smiled. To sergeant-instructors all recruits were idle men. ‘Did he say anything about having lost his cap, Sarn’t Finch?’
    â€˜No, sir, but the men don’t wear headdress for these here lectures. That’d be a matter for his platoon sergeant, sir.’
    â€˜And you’re absolutely certain that he was here yesterday morning.’
    Finch contrived to look mildly offended without being insubordinate. ‘He was definitely here, sir, and he should’ve been here today. I’ve marked him absent.’
    â€˜He’s locked up in my guardroom at the moment, Sarn’t Finch, but it looks rather as though you’ll be getting him back shortly.’
    â€˜Very good, sir,’ said Finch. ‘I don’t know what you banged him up for, but I daresay a couple of circuits of the barrack square with his rifle at the high port won’t do him no harm, and that’s a fact, sir.’
    â€˜Well, Inspector, it looks rather as though Stacey is not the man you want,’ said McIntyre, when the three of them were walking back to McIntyre’s staff car.
    â€˜It certainly looks that way, Captain,’ said a disappointed Hardcastle, ‘but I’m still wondering how our man at Victoria Station came to be in possession of Stacey’s cap.’
    â€˜That seems to point to some other soldier in his platoon having purloined Stacey’s cap, but I wonder why,’ said McIntyre.
    â€˜So do I, Captain,’ said Hardcastle. ‘So do I.’
    But as it turned out, it was not that simple.
    The problem of Stacey’s cap was still vexing Hardcastle by the time he and Marriott alighted from their train at Waterloo Station.
    Clearly in an irritable mood, the DDI marched out to the station forecourt, and hired a taxi.
    â€˜Scotland Yard, cabbie,’ he snapped, and then, turning to Marriott, added, ‘Tell ’em Cannon Row, and half the time you’ll finish up at Cannon Street in the City,’ he said.
    â€˜Yes, sir,’ said Marriott wearily. Hardcastle had offered this advice on almost every occasion that he and the DDI had travelled back to the police station.
    On the Friday morning, Hardcastle received a telephone call from Captain McIntyre.
    â€˜Inspector, I had another word with Stacey after you’d left, and persuaded him to tell me the circumstances