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for one of that build, she stiffened. “I did,” she said loudly.
    â€œAnyone go over them?”
    â€œI don’t know whether Mr. Stewart did or didn’t, and it wouldn’t have made any difference if he had,” she said in a breath. “I handed my book in at the end of the month and it was all correct. I paid the girls their wages, and Duncan and me ours. Bought all the insurance stamps and had charge of everything. And if there’s anything you’d like to call into question…”
    â€œOh no,” said Beef, “I’m sure it’s all down.”
    After which it was no wonder that Mrs. Duncan slammed the door as she went out.
    Beef turned to Peter Ferrers. “Can’t hardly wonder at the old chap hanging himself when he’d got tied up to that, can you?” he said. Then, seeming to recollect that for Peter it was not a facetious matter of following clues and being entertained, but a tragedy in which two old friends had already lost their lives, and his brother was being held for murder, he added vaguely, “All the same, I’m sorry about it.”
    Peter nodded. “Yes, she is rather much, isn’t she?” he said. “Still, she’s a good cook.”
    â€œDid the police say they’d be back?” asked Beef.
    Peter glanced at his wrist-watch. “Yes, at about midday, they said.”
    â€œWho was in charge?” asked Beef inquisitively.
    â€œThere was an Inspector Stute.”
    Beef slapped his thigh with a large hand. “Cor, ole Stute,” he grinned. “I wonder what he’ll say when he finds me down here. I’m afraid he never thought much of me, didn’t Stute. He was always on about his modern methods and that, and didn’t like the way I went straight to the heart of a thing.”
    I looked at Beef with some concern. In the old days he had at least the grace to be modest about himself when he was in contact with more intelligent detectives. But his having set up as a private investigator seemed to have turned his head. Even at this minute his professional air was very obvious as he asked Peter where the nearest telephone was.
    The Cypresses was not on the telephone, but there was a call-box apparently a few yards down the road. When Beef and I reached it he insisted rather childishly that I should squeeze myself into the box with him while he made his call. In the restricted space he began to search through the directory.
    â€œHm,” he said at last, “only three Oppensteins. That’s good.”
    His big blunt finger seemed to have some difficulty with the work of dialling, but eventually he got through. I listened while, with elephantine attempts at tact, he asked someone at the other end if he knew Mr. Ferrers, and received, I gathered, acurt negative. Undaunted, he dialled again, and this time got as far as saying, “Oh, you did know him, then?” before the other refused to discuss his business, or so I gathered. Beefs face was lively as he put down the receiver and looked round at me.
    â€œI thought so,” he said, “a moneylender, that’s what he was.”

Chapter VIII
    W HEN the front-door bell rang, Ferrers remarked quietly that it was probably the police, and he was right. And in a few minutes Inspector Stute was ushered into the room by Rose. I had not seen him since we had met over the Braxham case, and was a little apprehensive about his attitude to Beef. I remembered his dapper appearance, and cool, efficient manner, and I knew that in this case, at all events, he would have little patience with my blundering friend.
    However, he nodded with curt friendliness to Beef. “I heard you were here,” he said pleasantly. “You’ve set up on your own as a detective, then?”
    â€œThat’s right,” returned Beef, and I felt there was something aggressive in his manner. “And I’ve just come down here to get this little matter