`Do you think, sir, I have failed in my duty there?' the Chief Inspector asked, in a tone which he sought to make simply reflective.Forced unexpectedly to concentrate his faculties upon the task of preserving his balance, he had seized upon that point, and exposed himself to a rebuke; for the Assistant Commissioner, frowning slightly, observed that this was a very improper remark to make.
`But since you've made it,' he continued, coldly, `I'll tell you that this is not my meaning.'
He paused, with a straight glance of his sunken eyes which was a full equivalent of the unspoken termination `and you know it'.The head of the so-called Special Crimes Department, debarred by his position from going out of doors personally in quest of secrets locked up in guilty breasts, had a propensity to exercise his considerable gifts for the detection of incriminating truth upon his own subordinates.That peculiar instinct could hardly be called a weakness.It was natural.He was a born detective.It had unconsciously governed his choice of a career, and if it ever failed him in life it was perhaps in the one exceptional circumstance of his marriage - which was also natural.It fed, since it could not roam abroad, upon the human material which was brought to it in its official seclusion.We can never cease to be ourselves.
His elbow on the desk, his thin legs crossed and nursing his cheek in the palm of his meagre hand, the Assistant Commissioner in charge of the Special Crimes branch was getting hold of the case with growing interest.
His Chief Inspector, if not an absolutely worthy foeman of his penetration, was at any rate the most worthy of all within his reach.A mistrust of established reputations was strictly in character with the Assistant Commissioner's ability as detector.His memory evoked a certain old, fat and wealthy native chief in the distant colony whom it was a tradition for the successive Colonial Governors to trust and make much of as a firm friend and supporter of the order and legality established by white men; whereas, when examined sceptically, he was found out to be principally his own good friend, and nobody else's.Not precisely a traitor, but still a man of many dangerous reservations in his fidelity, caused by a due regard for his own advantage, comfort, and safety.A fellow of some innocence in his ***** duplicity, but none the less dangerous.He took some finding out.He was physically a big man, too, and (allowing for the difference of colour, of course)Chief Inspector Heat's appearance recalled him to the memory of his superior.
It was not the eyes nor yet the lips exactly.It was bizarre.But does not Alfred Wallace relate in his famous book on the Malay Archipelago how, amongst the Aru Islanders, he discovered in an old and naked savage with a sooty skin a peculiar resemblance to a dear friend at home?
For the first time since he took up his appointment the Assistant Commissioner felt as if he were going to do some real work for his salary.And that was a pleasurable sensation.`I'll turn him inside out like an old glove,'
thought the Assistant Commissioner, with his eyes resting pensively upon Chief Inspector Heat.
`No, that was not my thought,' he began again.`There is no doubt about you knowing your business - no doubt at all; and that's precisely why I--'
He stopped short, and changing his tone: `What could you bring up against Michaelis of a definite nature? I mean apart from the fact that the two men under suspicion - you're certain there were two of them - came last from a railway station within three miles of the village where Michaelis is living now.'
`This by itself is enough for us to go upon, sir, with that sort of man,' said the Chief Inspector, with returning composure.The slight, approving movement of the Assistant Commissioner's head went far to pacify the resentful astonishment of the renowned officer.For Chief Inspector Heat was a kind man, an excellent husband, a devoted father; and the public and departmental confidence he enjoyed, acting favourably upon an amiable nature, disposed him to feel friendly towards the successive Assistant Commissioners he had seen pass through that very room.There had been three in his time.
The first one, a soldierly, abrupt, red-faced person, with white eyebrows and an explosive temper, could be managed with a silken thread.He left on reaching the age limit.The second, a perfect gentleman, knowing his own and everybody else's place to a nicety, on resigning to take up a higher appointment out of England got decorated for (really) Inspector Heat's services.To work with him had been a pride and a pleasure.The third, a bit of a dark horse from the first, was at the end of eighteen months something of a dark horse still to the department.Upon the whole Chief Inspector Heat believed him to be in the main harmless - odd-looking, but harmless.He was speaking now, and the Chief Inspector listened with outward deference (which means nothing, being a matter of duty) and inwardly with benevolent toleration.
`Michaelis reported himself before leaving London for the country?'
`Yes, sir.He did.'