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was.
    â€œFred Tompkins didn’t know what this stuff was called but he did know that the doctors had talked to the Health and Safety people in case there was something tricky about this particular ore that they ought to have known about.”
    â€œAnd was there?”
    â€œNot that they knew,” said Tod, twitching his shoulders expressively. “Which doesn’t mean much, does it? Dad says some of them don’t even know which way is up.”
    â€œDidn’t they have a post-mortem?”
    Tod shook his head. “Seems there was a doctor at this ‘do’ out at Mellamby that Ottershaw collapsed at. He told the ambulance people that it was a heart attack and to get a move on.”
    â€œBut it was no go?”
    â€œThat’s right,” said Tod. “He was unconscious but alive when they got to the hospital but he didn’t last long. Fred said they had him in their Coronary Care Unit but it didn’t do him any good.”
    Sloan leaned back in his chair. “So what brings you, Tod?”
    Morton pointed to the matchbox. “That, Inspector. Whatever it is.”
    â€œSurprise me,” invited Detective Inspector Sloan.
    Morton opened the matchbox with all the concentration of a schoolboy with a captured Camberwell Beauty butterfly, teased a little wad of cotton wool to one side and said, “There, Inspector. Look.”
    Sloan looked. What he saw was a very small metal pellet.
    â€œThe trouble,” said Tod Morton, “is that——”
    â€œIt’s hollow,” finished Detective Inspector Sloan for him.

FOUR
    And the Eyes Grow Dim
    â€œLooking for work, are you, Sloan?” barked Police Superintendent Leeyes.
    â€œNo, sir.”
    â€œBecause if you haven’t got enough to do, you can get on with a bit of collar-fingering down in that new shopping arcade in the High Street.”
    â€œIt’s not that at all, sir.”
    â€œThey tell me that there’s a young woman down there doing that new thing which someone was trying to explain to me.”
    â€œSugging, sir.”
    â€œSounds foreign to me.”
    â€œIt isn’t, sir.” The Superintendent’s xenophobia was a by-word in the Calleshire Force. “It goes on all the time.”
    Leeyes sniffed. “I’ve never heard of it, Sloan, but then I’ve only been in the thief-taking business all my life.”
    â€œIt stands for ‘selling under guise,’ sir.”
    â€œThat poet fellow—you know who I mean, Sloan.”
    â€œKipling, sir?” The Superintendent was a great one for attending Adult Education Classes in the long winter evenings. The sessions on “Rudyard Kipling—The Man and the Writer,” had made a great impression on him.
    â€œThat’s the fellow. You remember what he said, Sloan, don’t you?”
    â€œâ€˜The crimes of Clapham are chaste in Martapan,’” said Sloan. The entire complement of the Berebury Police Station knew the quotation by heart now. Actually Detective Inspector Sloan, rosarian when off-duty, had even looked it up once and found the line before that one even more interesting: “The wildest dreams of Kew are commonplace in Katmandu.” He’d like that.
    â€œSugging,” said Superintendent Leeyes firmly, “sounds more like Martapan than Clapham to me.”
    â€œIt isn’t, sir,” insisted Sloan. “It’s going about with a clipboard and a questionnaire pretending you’re doing a survey and then, when you’ve got the person’s name and address, trying to sell them something.”
    Leeyes scowled. “Having craftily found out first whether they can afford it.”
    â€œAnd if they’re the sort of person likely to be in the market for that particular item,” said Sloan. “Yes.”
    â€œClever stuff,” pronounced Leeyes. It was the ultimate accolade.
    â€œI’ll see to this woman,” Sloan