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not at all easy to explain. If it was a straightforward case, I’d be the first to say go ahead and do your damnedest. But it isn’t a straightforward case. And above all—” it was evident that the inspector was choosing his words with great care—“above all, it isn’t my case.”
    “I see,” said McCann. “Yes. The man who’s doing the job – Inspector Partridge, I believe.”
    “That’s the chap.”
    “You think I ought to have a word with him.”
    “You could do that, of course,” said Hazlerigg. “I don’t think you’d get much change out of him though.”
    “A rough character?”
    “No. He’s a man of very decided views.”
    “I see,” said McCann again.
    It was a surprising explanation, and surprisingly delicately put. It also made things extremely awkward. Before McCann could make up his mind as to exactly what he ought to say Hazlerigg went on:
    “If the case is conducted on the lines you suggest, with Macrea at the wheel—” McCann was not so tactless as to inquire how Hazlerigg, if he had not heard of the change of solicitors, was yet fully informed of the change of counsel—“then one thing’s certain. There’s going to be a lot of mud thrown around. And since a good deal of the evidence in this case is police evidence – I’m not using the word in any derogatory sense – then it follows that a good deal of that mud will stick to the police witnesses – you follow me.”
    “Very clearly,” said McCann.
    “Well, then,” said Hazlerigg bluntly, “in a case like this I fight for my own side. If you and your friends want to take this up as a – a sort of private crusade – then I warn you that on principle I’m against you.”
    “I’m sure,” said McCann steadily, “that you’ll do nothing but fight fair.”
     
    There was a short and rather uncomfortable silence.
    “I hope I shan’t disappoint you, then,” said Hazlerigg with an attempt at lightness which sat awkwardly on him. He leaned forward and pressed the bell.
    Sergeant Crabbe appeared.
    “Sit down, Sergeant,” said Hazlerigg. “This is Major McCann. I expect you remember him.”
    Sergeant Crabbe, a sorrowful man, nodded heavily. He bestowed upon McCann the look which a St. Bernard might have given if; after a long trek through the snow, he had found the traveller already frozen to death. He then sat down dutifully on the edge of the hardest chair.
    “Major McCann is interested in the Lamartine case, and has some questions to put to us – questions which I shall do my best to answer. I thought it might be useful if you made a note of the interview.”
    “Very good, sir.”
    “When you get it typed you might have a second copy taken for Inspector Partridge.”
    “Very good, sir. Do you wish me to make a verbatim record?”
    “Oh, no, Sergeant. Just the gist of what passes. Head, notes will do. Now then—”
    He turned invitingly toward his visitor.
    McCann was not to be intimidated. Moreover, the byplay had given him an opportunity to set his thoughts in order.
    “There were one or two points,” he said, “that weren’t quite apparent on reading the papers. First of all, the hotel proprietor. I understood from our client that he was a compatriot – that he came from the same part of France.”
    “That is correct. I understand that he was from Maine-et-Loire – that is the district of Angers – where Miss Lamartine was staying during the Occupation.”
    “How does he come to be in England now?”
    “I understand that he was granted an entry visa in 1946. He had had a good record during the war and put down the necessary security. The Foreign Office could tell you more about that, of course.”
    “When you say ‘a good record,” said McCann, “you mean that he was a member of the Resistance—?”
    “I suppose that any Frenchman who did not co-operate with the Germans could more or less be so described.”
    “Quite so. Anyway, he might have had some previous contact with our client. He