The telephone on the desk rang sharply. “Whose trail?” Desmond could not forbear to ask as the Chief took off the receiver. “Just a minute,” the Chief said. Then he spoke into the telephone: “Marigold? Yes. Really? Very well, I’ll come straight along now... I’ll be with you in twenty minutes. Good-bye!” He put down the receiver and rose to his feet. “Okewood,” he cried gaily, “what do you say to a little detective work? That was Marigold of the Criminal Investigation Department... he’s down at Seven Kings handling this murder case. I asked him to let me know when it would be convenient for me to come along and have a look round, and he wants me to go now. Two heads are better than one. You’d better come along!” He pressed a button on the desk. The swift and silent Matthews appeared. “Matthews,” he said, “when Captain Strangwise comes, please tell him I’ve been called away and ask him to call back here at two o’clock to see me.” He paused and laid a lean finger reflectively along his nose. “Are you lunching anywhere, Okewood?” he said. Desmond shook his head. “Then you will lunch with me, eh? Right. Come along and we’ll try to find the way to Seven Kings.” The two men threaded the busy corridors to the lift which deposited them at the main entrance. A few minutes later the Chief was dexterously guiding his Vauxhall car through the crowded traffic of the Strand, Desmond beside him on the front seat. Desmond was completely fogged in his mind. He couldn’t see light anywhere. He asked himself in vain what possible connection could exist between this murder in an obscure quarter of London and the man at his side who, he knew, held in his firm hands lines that stretched to the uttermost ends of the earth? What kind of an affair was this, seemingly so commonplace that could take the Chief’s attention from the hundred urgent matters of national security that occupied him? The Chief seemed absorbed in his driving and Desmond felt it would be useless to attempt to draw him out.
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