Read The Man in the Queue for Free Online Page A

number?"
    Barber did.
    An hour later, Danny, who was performing a leisurely and painstaking toilet in the room in Amber Street, was informed that Inspector Grant would be very much obliged if he would have a short talk with him at the Yard.
    Danny's pale grey, wary eyes surveyed the plain-clothes man who had brought the message. "If he thinks he has anything on one," he said, "he has another guess coming."
    The plain-clothes man did not think that the inspector wanted anything but some information from him.
    "Oh? And what is the inspector inspecting at the moment?"
    But that the plain-clothes man either did not know or would not tell.
    "All right," said Danny. "I'll be along right now."
    When a portly constable led him into Grant's presence Danny, who was small and slim, indicated the departing one with a backward jerk of the head and a humorous lift of an eyebrow. "It isn't often any one troubles to announce me," he said.
    "No," said Grant, smiling, "your presence is usually announced after your departure, isn't it?"
    "You're a wit, Inspector. I shouldn't have thought you'd need any one to jog your brains along. You don't think you've got anything on me, do you?"
    "Not at all. I thought you might be of some use to me."
    "You're certainly flattering." It was impossible to tell when Miller was serious or otherwise.
    "Did you ever know by sight a man like this?" While he described in detail the murdered man, Grant's eyes were examining Danny, and his brain was busy with what his eyes saw. Gloves. How could he get the glove off Danny's left hand without deliberately asking for its removal?
    When he came to the end of his description, particularized even to the turn-in toe, Danny said politely, "That's the deader from the queue. No, I'm very sorry to disappoint you, Inspector, but I never saw the man in my life."
    "Well, I suppose you have no objections to coming with me and having a look at him?"
    "Not if it'll set your mind at rest, Inspector. I'll do anything to oblige."
    The inspector put his hand into his pocket and brought it out full of coins, as if to make sure of his loose change before setting out. A sixpenny piece slid through his fingers and rolled swiftly across the smooth surface of the table towards Miller, and Miller's hand shot out in an abrupt preventive movement as it was about to drop off the table's edge to the floor. He fumbled for a moment with his gloved hand and then laid the coin down on the table.
    "Trifling things, these," he remarked in his flat amiable voice. But it was his right hand that he had used to stop it.
    As they were driving down to the mortuary in a car he turned to the inspector with the almost noiseless expulsion of breath that in him did duty for a laugh. "Say," he said, "if any of my pals see me now, they'll all be boarding a dangler for Southampton inside five minutes and not waiting to pack."
    "Well, we'd do the packing—back," said Grant.
    "Got us all taped like that, have you? Would you bet on it? I'll lay you five to one in dollars—no, pounds—five to one in pounds that you don't have one of us settled inside two years. You won't take it? Well, I think you're wise."
    When Miller was brought face to face with the body of the murdered man, Grant's eager eyes could trace no shadow of expression on that poker face. Danny's cool grey glance wandered over the dead man's features in a half-interested indifference. And Grant knew certainly that, even had Miller known the man, his hope of a betraying gesture or expression had been a vain one.
    "No," Danny was saying, "I never saw the man in my—" He stopped. There was a long pause. "Say, but I did!" he said. "Oh, gosh, let me think! Where was it? Where was it? Wait a minute, and it'll come." He beat a hectic tattoo on his forehead with his gloved palm. Was this acting, thought Grant? Good acting, if so. But then Miller would never make the mistake of acting badly. "Oh, gosh, I can't get it! I talked to him, too. Don't think I ever knew