Williams now sought permission to hand over the tie to the manager.

Grant had approved his action, and while mentally commending Williams' common sense — lots of sergeants would have gone on plodding round London because they were told to and it was their duty — thought not too hopefully of the hundred or so branches of Faith Brothers all over Scotland and England. The chances narrowed slightly, however, when Williams appeared with a fuller explanation. Ties like that, it appeared, were made up in boxes of six, each tie in the box being of a different shade though usually in the same colour scheme. It was unlikely that more than one, or at the most two, ties of the exact shade of their specimen had been sent to any one branch. There was therefore more hope of a salesman remembering the customer who had bought it than there would have been if the tie had been merely one of a box all the same shade. The detective part of Grant listened appreciatively while the looker-on part of him smiled over the sergeant's fluency in the jargon of the trade. Half an hour with the manager of Faith Brothers had had the effect of studding the sergeant's habitual simplicity of word and phrase with amazing jewels of technicality. He talked glibly of «lines» and «repeats» and similar profundities, so that Grant had, through his bulk, in a queer television a vivid picture of the manager himself. But he was grateful to Williams and said so. That was part of Grant's charm; he never forgot to say when he was pleased.

In the afternoon, having given up hope of learning anything more by it, he had sent the dagger to the laboratory for analysis. "Tell me anything you can about it," he had said; and last night when he left he was still waiting for the answer. Now he stretched out an arm into the chilly air and grabbed at the telephone. When he got the number he had asked for, he said:

"Inspector Grant speaking. Any developments?"

No, there were no developments. Two people had viewed the body last night — two separate people — but neither had recognized it. Yes, their names and addresses had been taken and were lying on his desk now. There was also a report from the laboratory.

"Good!" said Grant, jammed the earpiece on the hook and sprang out of bed, his sense of foreboding dispelled by the clear light of reason. Over his cold bath he whistled, and all the time he was dressing he whistled, so that his landlady said to her husband, who was departing to catch an eight o'clock bus, "I'm thinking it won't be very long now before that horrible anarchist is caught." «Anarchist» and «assassin» were synonymous terms to Mrs. Field. Grant himself would not have put it so optimistically perhaps, but the thought of that sealed package waiting on his desk was to him what a lucky packet is to a small boy. It might be something of no importance and it might be a diamond. He caught Mrs. Field's benevolent glance on him as she set down his breakfast, and it was like a small boy that he said to her, "This my lucky day, do you think?"

"I don't know about luck, Mr. Grant. I don't know as I believes in it. But I do believe in Providence. And I don't think Providence'll let a nice young man like that be stabbed to death and not bring the guilty to justice. Trust in the Lord, Mr. Grant."

"And if the clues are very thin, the Lord and the C.I.D.," Grant misquoted at her and attacked his bacon and eggs. She lingered a moment watching him, shook her head in a gently misgiving way at him, and left him scanning the newspapers while he chewed.

On the way up to town he occupied himself by considering the problem of the man's non-identification, which became momentarily more surprising.