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searched.”
    “Would you care to be searched, Mr. Ogden? We do that sort of thing rather neatly.”
    “Well, for crying out loud!” exclaimed Mr. Ogden. He looked from Alleyn to Fox, cast up his eyes, passed a plump hand over his head and burst out laughing.
    “Get to it,” he begged, “get to it. For the Lord’s sake get to it. Would I care to be searched!”
    “Carry on, Fox,” said Alleyn.
    Fox took out a notebook and Alleyn, with the swift precision of a pickpocket, explored the inner fastnesses of Mr. Ogden’s suit.
    “Note-case. One fiver and three singles. Pocketbook. Letter. Typewritten, stamped and sealed. Address ‘Hector K. Manville, Ogden-Schultz Gold-refining and Extracting Co., 81, East Forty-fifth Street, Boston, Massachusetts.’ Letter refers to a new gold refining process. It’s rather technical.”
    Fox read it with difficulty.
    “Bill from Harrods. £9 10
s
. 8
d
. To account rendered. Date: November 2nd of this year. Letter beginning ‘Dear Sam,’ signed Heck. Date—”
    Alleyn murmured on. It was all over before Mr. Ogden had left off chuckling.
    “No phials of poison,” said Alleyn lightly. “That’s all, sir.”
    “It was real smart,” declared Mr. Ogden handsomely. “They don’t fan a man neater than that in the States. That’s saying some. Well, Inspector, if that’s all I guess I’ll move off. Say, it seems real callous for me to be standing here talking facetious when Cara Quayne is lying — See here, Chief, have I got to say murdered?”
    “We must wait for the inquest, Mr. Ogden.”
    The American’s genial face had suddenly become preternaturally solemn like that of a clown, or a child who has been reproved for laughing.
    “If it is murder,” he said quietly, “and the trail’s not just all that easy and — aw hell, Chief, I’ve got the dollars and I ain’t paralysed yet.” With which cryptic remark Mr. Ogden took himself off.
    “Is he real?” asked Nigel, “or is he a murderer with unbridled histrionic ambitions? Surely no American was ever so American. Surely—”
    “Do stop making these exclamatory interjections. You behave for all the world like a journalistic Greek chorus. Fox, what
did
the gentleman mean by his last remark. The one about not suffering from paralysis?”
    “I understood him to be offering unlimited sums of money to the police and the prosecution, sir.”
    “Bribery, thinly disguised, depend upon it,” said Nigel. “I tell you no American was ever—”
    “I don’t know. His eyes, at all events, are original. People do run true to type. It’s an axiom of police investigation. Next please, Bailey.”
    Janey Jenkins was next.

CHAPTER VII
Janey and Maurice
    Miss Jenkins was one of those women who are instinctively thought of by their Christian names. She looked like a Janey. She was shortish, compact, with straight hair, well brushed, snapping black eyes, snub nose, and an amusing mouth. Without being pretty she was attractive. Her age was about twenty-two. She walked briskly towards Alleyn, sat down composedly and said: “Well, Inspector Alleyn, let’s get it over. I’ll answer any questions you like, compromising or uncompromising, as long as it’s over quickly.”
    “I thank whatever gods may be,” rejoiced Alleyn, “and there are enough to begin with on the premises, if you’ll excuse my saying so.”
    “We
are
rather generously endowed, aren’t we?” said Janey.
    “You must forgive me. I didn’t mean to be offensive.”
    “You weren’t. I’m not altogether an ass. This is rather a rum show, I dare say.”
    “You don’t talk like my idea of an Initiate.”
    “Don’t I? Well perhaps I’m not a very good one. I’m thinking of backsliding, Inspector Alleyn. Oh, not because of this awful business. At least — I don’t know. Perhaps it has shown us up in rather an unattractive light.” She paused and wrinkled her forehead. “It all seems very bogus to you I expect, but — but — there’s something in