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man, keep up. What are you waiting for?” in a tone that was neither respectful nor called for.

6
    I AM SORRY to have to report that the Chief Constable’s energetic plans came to nothing. We hurried down the path, Mr Sempill striding out in front with me coming behind like his wee terrier out for a walk, my hat not even properly on my head yet – and respectable dress is something an officer of the police must give a due and proper regard – but he had no sooner flung open the gate than we found our way blocked.
    There was a sturdy man in a long grey coat standing right in the middle of the gateway, as if his hand had been on the handle the minute before the door opened. I knew him at once for Norval Scrymgeour, a reporter from the Courier up in Dundee. I’ve often seen him, hanging about or pushing in whenever there’s a fire or a lost child or some other tragedy. I’ve even spoken to him once or twice up at the Sheriff Court when I’ve been called to give evidence. I don’t say he’s a bad man. He has a job to do and children to feed.
    But there he was, standing like a mushroom under his brown bowler hat, and if Mr Sempill did not know him at once for a newspaper man, the photographer standing behind him, wrestling with a camera on a spider-leg frame, must surely have given it away.
    I cannot say which of them, the Chief Constable or the reporter, got the biggest fright when that door swung open, but I can tell you who was the first to recover.
    Have you ever seen a magic show where the conjurer boasts that “the hand is quicker than the eye”? Well, to this day I don’t know how it happened, but it seemed in a single movement the reporter had tipped his hat and produced a card, which he held out to Mr Sempill as a sign of his authority.
    “Norval Scrymgeour,” he said, “the Courier ,” as if that simple recitation was enough in itself to open the doors of Buckingham Palace. “Is Miss Milne dead?”
    The Chief Constable was lost for words and he could think of no better reply than to shake his whiskers and say: “What? What?” before he turned and yelled back up the path for Constable Suttie to “get back here and secure this damned gate, as I ordered!” which was unfair as I had been present when he ordered both Broon and Suttie to search the gardens. Still, a moment or two of glowering and raging and a moment or two more spent filling the gate with his broad back gave the Chief Constable time to gather his thoughts, so when he turned back to face the reporter he had something to say.
    “Now then,” he glanced down at the pasteboard card in his glove, “Scrimshank.”
    “Scrymgeour.”
    “As you like. What are you doing here?”
    “Simply investigating a report of a murder, Chief Constable. Have you anything to say?”
    “Nothing at all.”
    “Have you absolutely no clue as to what happened? Not the slightest indication of the culprit?”
    “Investigations are at an early stage.”
    “But you do have definite lines of inquiry, can I say that much?”
    The Chief Constable simply glared at him.
    “Can you at least confirm that the victim is Miss Jean Milne?”
    “Who gave you that name?”
    “We have our sources.”
    I looked at him and shook my head. “You mean the General Post Office Directory. Is that the height of your investigative powers?”
    “Sergeant, that will do.” I am sorry to say the Chief Constable was very short-tempered that day, but with a sort of defeated sigh he said: “You may write this. You may say that concerns having been raised for Miss Jean Milne, a spinster lady of this address, who has not been seen for some time, entry was effected by the police this morning. The body of Miss Milne was discovered in the house at about . . .” He looked at me.
    “About 9.20.”
    “At about 9.20 a.m. and there is every appearance that the unfortunate lady has been the victim of a cruel and brutal murder. Investigations are continuing. Anyone with any information helpful