“No, she can’t change. But did you know that she walked in her sleep?”

The sergeant looked at him sharply. “For a newcomer, sir, you’ve unearthed a good deal. I never heard that before.”

“And would you think it of interest if I told you that the desk at which Mr. Millicent was found is of particular attraction to both Martin and Perkins?”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because I’ve seen them both examining it closely when they thought they were unobserved. They were looking for something, sergeant.”

Burke got up, stood at the diminutive window, and with his hands folded behind his back stared at the verdant expanse of Bamberley Green. Obviously he was thinking very hard. Derrick lit his pipe and contemplated the big frame, the thick neck, and round, neatly clipped skull. There was no promise of great ability here, no quick perception, no imaginative brain. Burke found his inspiration in his official regulations. Law, order, and discipline, was it not all in a book? He was the type for whom it was hard to let go, and impossible to forget. And the biggest thing in his life was still the Millicent murder. It hurt, just as Constable Peters had intimated. Presently he turned.

“Mr. Derrick, in most cases of crime, and especially that of murder, the force is pestered with amateur detectives who believe they have the one and only clue. It’s very often a reporter for some paper. They make all kinds of trouble, and always mix things up if you give them any rope. But you’ve said enough to justify me in talking about what took place at the inquest on Mr. Millicent; though, mind you, it’s entirely unofficial.”

“That’s all I ask, sergeant; and if this thing can be solved I have no desire to appear in it at all. I’d much sooner not. If we get any results, they’re yours, not mine. I don’t pose as an amateur detective; but, from what I have already seen and know, I believe this thing can be run to earth.”

Burke reached to a shelf above his head and took down a large leather-bound volume. On the well-thumbed pages of this were pasted envelopes, from one of which he extracted a docket bearing the name of Millicent, with a date. The manner in which he turned to it suggested that this procedure had often taken place before. He cleared his throat and began rather stiffly.

“At ten thirty on the night of October fourteenth—that’s two years ago less three days—I was just leaving this office when Paling, the groom of Dr. 

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