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time,’ Mark promised.
    Claude Prendergast was almost maudlin in his thanks.
    “We’ll go down to Delaware,’ he said, ‘our country house; comfortable there. Better than a hotel. And since Maisie thinks I’ve left her she won’t think of looking there.’
    ‘Can you tell me about your new-found relation?’ Roger asked.
    ‘Harrington? No. Only what my wife told me, and I’ve already told you that.’
    When Mark and Prendergast had gone, Roger went into the kitchen. Janet was knitting, and the kitten playing with the wool.
    ‘What made Claude like that?’ Janet asked. ‘He was little better than a hysterical child. When he came in he kept looking over his shoulder, and implored Mark to stay by the window even I saw that. Was that caused only by the quarrel with his wife? And this sudden fear?’
    ‘I don’t think so,’ said Roger slowly. ‘I think Claude broke down because he’s been living on his nerves for a long time. No man, not even a Claude, would crack so completely on a flimsy piece of suspicion, if he were normal. I think that Claude might have been fed on drugs for some time. Whether he’s been self-fed or not makes no odds. He’s had the inheritance, the pitched battles with Maisie, and the drug. All of these have worked him up into his present state. I think he’s broken out at the wrong moment for Potter and Maisie. But –’
    He stopped.
    ‘Yes?’ Janet leaned forward.
    ‘The drug isn’t a guess but a reasoned deduction. I wondered why Claude’s eyes were so pin-pointed when I first saw them. I wonder what he’s been taking? Cocaine would do it. Anyhow, Claude has been drugged, fact one. Maisie has talked of a long lost cousin, fact two. I had hoped to have the rest of the evening off, but I’d better get back to the Yard.’
    ‘I’ve seen that coming,’ Janet said. ‘Thank goodness I’ve a kitten to keep me company.’
    Petrol shortage and a conscience made Roger go to the Yard by bus, except in emergency. He walked to Fulham Road, caught a bus almost at once, and went upstairs.
    The new relation, Harrington, was on his mind; was there one? Or was this a scare from Maisie? Who was Maisie? The sooner he could find out, the better.
    Then he thought of the kitten, and grinned.
    ‘Why are you so amused, Inspector?’
    Roger turned sharply, to look into the face of Gabriel Potter. He checked his smile, and then widened it edging closer to the window to allow Potter more room.
    ‘And what brings you here?’ he said.
    ‘Finding you on the same bus –’ Potter began.
    ‘No,’ interrupted Roger. ‘Following or preceding me, but not finding. Were you coming to see me when you saw me at the bus stop? Or were you just around?’
    ‘The meeting is entirely fortuitous,’ answered Potter. ‘If I wanted to see you, Inspector, I should call at your office, not at your private house. I had intended doing so tomorrow morning, but this may save my time. Inspector, I was annoyed, righteously annoyed, by your high-handed treatment of my client this morning.’
    ‘When did he become your client?’ interrupted Roger. ‘Before last night’s burglary and attack on Mr Lessing, or after it? If before, why did he need a solicitor?’
    ‘I think that you are a little drunk, Inspector,’ murmured Potter. ‘I have handled Mr Clay’s affairs for some years.’
    ‘Three times he took what wasn’t his, three times he spent a spell in prison,’ said Roger amiably. ‘Either a hopeless case or a bad lawyer, and I wouldn’t presume on the latter. Nothing about my “treatment” of Clay was high-handed. He is a specialist at a certain type of lock-cracking, and a lock was cracked in the way he works, last night. He was known to be in London, too.’
    ‘I trust you are now satisfied that he was nowhere near Chelsea,’ Potter said coldly.
    ‘Not for a minute.’ In Roger’s mind’s eye there was a picture of Chatworth’s rubicund face, Chatworth giving him the go-ahead with Potter. He