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twenty-seven. He spoke in an accent the Inspector found it equally difficult to locate. It was well-bred English basically, but overlaid with something else. Was it a trace of dialect? Behind his ingenuous bearing and boyish face there were occasional hard streaks that made the Inspector thoughtful. He had come across this type among young men who drove cars with such consistent and unreasonable recklessness that the Inspector’s efforts had generally resulted either in a trial for manslaughter or a permanently suspended driving licence.
    On the face of it, however, Vane got off as scot free as Ness. He had helped get the body out and had never been near it again.
    â€œSo he says. We’ll see,” was the Inspector’s mental comment.
    He had lunch at the club, parrying with the skill of years Miss Sackbut’s pressing enquiries. After lunch he went out with her on to the club lawn, and she pointed to the horizon, where a tiny speck could just be made out.
    â€œThat’s a Gull,” she said. “Gauntlett is the only bloke with a Gull round here, so it’s probably Randall.”
    â€œYou said he was on a taxi job,” remarked the Inspector. “What exactly does that mean?”
    â€œAn air-taxi flight,” answered Miss Sackbut. “Sixpence a mile or what-have-you. Valentine Gauntlett runs our air-taxi show and does very well. I’m damned if I know how he gets so much business from this one-eyed place. Of course, newspaper deliveries between Paris and London help a bit. Randall’s doing a newspaper delivery job now.”
    â€œI’m surprised an airman as well known as Captain Randall needs to do that sort of thing.”
    â€œGood lord, there’s not so much money in that kind of transatlantic business as people think. It’s like getting blood from a stone to screw the bonuses out of the aircraft and petrol people now. Still, Randall needn’t do it. It’s only because he’s got a half-share in Gauntlett’s air-taxi business, so if he’s down here and they’re short of pilots he sometimes goes off on a job. It keeps his hand in, you see, and it isn’t like regular work. That really would be fatal for Randall.”
    By this time the Gull had arrived. Randall taxied it into the hangar, and then Creighton, deftly shaking off Miss Sackbut, intercepted him as he walked back to the Gauntlett Air Taxi’s scarlet-and-yellow hut.
    Randall, the Inspector felt, was the least likely candidate of the three. Whether the Inspector had been prejudiced by a long-standing admiration for the airman was another matter. Randall had, apart from his blond impressiveness, a certain direct manner, deprecating his own achievements, and resolutely insisting that commercial motives alone inspired him. This was refreshing, and the Inspector had liked him for it.
    Randall continued to be frank and also disconcertingly penetrating. “Look here, Inspector,” he said, when he had heard the Inspector’s story, “the suicide business doesn’t wash. I’m sure you wouldn’t come round here in full cry just because of a suspicion it was suicide. There’s something more behind it, eh? Do you suspect someone of monkeying with the machine?”
    â€œThat’s as may be,” answered the Inspector.
    â€œI don’t want to pump you, but look here, what the devil difference does it make what happened after the crash?”
    â€œEverything counts,” said the Inspector with an air of innocence.
    â€œHave it your way. Anyway, there’s nothing much to tell. By the time I got there poor Furnace was laid out cold. I helped get him into the crash tender and drove back with him. We put out trestles in the hangar office—the room that’s boarded off—and laid the poor bloke on it, with something over him, of course. Then Sally shooed us away and she was there all the morning, and like the dear he is, the Bishop was