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type.’
    â€˜But the cake?’
    â€˜Pure patter. He hadn’t really come for the cake.’
    â€˜And your next explanation? You said there were a dozen.’
    â€˜I always prefer the Straightforward,’ Mr Rennit said, running his fingers up and down the whisky bottle. ‘Perhaps there was a genuine mistake about the cake and he had come for it. Perhaps it contained some kind of a prize . . .’
    â€˜And the drug was imagination again?’
    â€˜It’s the straightforward explanation.’
    Mr Rennit’s calm incredulity shook Rowe. He said with resentment, ‘In all your long career as a detective, have you never come across such a thing as murder – or a murderer?’
    Mr Rennit’s nose twitched over the cup. ‘Frankly,’ he said, ‘no. I haven’t. Life, you know, isn’t like a detective story. Murderers are rare people to meet. They belong to a class of their own.’
    â€˜That’s interesting to me.’
    â€˜They are very, very seldom,’ Mr Rennit said, ‘what we call gentlemen. Outside of story-books. You might say that they belong to the lower orders.’
    â€˜Perhaps,’ Rowe said, ‘I ought to tell you that I am a murderer myself.’
    2
    â€˜Ha-ha,’ said Mr Rennit miserably.
    â€˜That’s what makes me so furious,’ Rowe said. ‘That they should pick on me, me. They are such amateurs.’
    â€˜You are – a professional?’ Mr Rennit asked with a watery and unhappy smile.
    Rowe said, ‘Yes, I am, if thinking of the thing for two years before you do it, dreaming about it nearly every night until at last you take the drug out from the unlocked drawer, makes you one . . . and then sitting in the dock trying to make out what the judge is really thinking, watching each one of the jury, wondering what he thinks . . . there was a woman in pince-nez who wouldn’t be separated from her umbrella, and then you go below and wait hour after hour till the jury come back and the warder tries to be encouraging, but you know if there’s any justice left on earth there can be only one verdict . . .’
    â€˜Would you excuse me one moment?’ Mr Rennit said. ‘I think I heard my man come back . . .’ He emerged from behind his desk and then whisked through the door behind Rowe’s chair with surprising agility. Rowe sat with his hands held between his knees, trying to get a grip again on his brain and his tongue . . . ‘Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth and a door round about my lips . . .’ He heard a bell tinkle in the other room and followed the sound. Mr Rennit was at the phone. He looked piteously at Rowe and then at the sausage-roll as if that were the only weapon within reach.
    â€˜Are you ringing up the police?’ Rowe asked, ‘or a doctor?’
    â€˜A theatre,’ Mr Rennit said despairingly, ‘I just remembered my wife . . .’
    â€˜You are married, are you, in spite of all your experience?’
    â€˜Yes.’ An awful disinclination to talk convulsed Mr Rennit’s features as a thin faint voice came up the wires. He said, ‘Two seats – in the front row,’ and clapped the receiver down again.
    â€˜The theatre?’
    â€˜The theatre.’
    â€˜And they didn’t even want your name? Why not be reasonable?’ Rowe said. ‘After all, I had to tell you. You have to have all the facts. It wouldn’t be fair otherwise. It might have to be taken into consideration, mightn’t it, if you work for me.’
    â€˜Into consideration?’
    â€˜I mean – it might have a bearing. That’s something I discovered when they tried me – that everything may have a bearing. The fact that I had lunch on a certain day alone at the Holborn Restaurant. Why was I alone, they asked me. I said I liked being alone sometimes, and