Janet stepped to Roger’s side.

“Is he serious, Roger?”

Roger forced a smile. “Yes, he has a warrant, but it’s coining to something when he adopts this method instead of a straightforward approach. I suppose he could have come while I was out instead of while I’m here, but apparently that’s the extent of the consideration I can expect.” He seemed almost amused. “It’s all quite fantastic. It explains why Martin was dogging me, anyhow. He’s probably been making sure I didn’t pass the bribe on to anyone else!”

Abbott regarded him coldly.

“I can see nothing amusing in the situation, West.”

“I suppose not,” said Roger, dryly. “Hadn’t you better start searching? You’ll want to begin on us, but that doesn’t include my wife.”

“If it is necessary to search Mrs West — and I hope it will not be — I hardly need tell you the proper measures will be taken. Will you be good enough to call in Martin and the others ?”

“Others?”

“ There are two detective-officers with him.”

Roger nodded curtly, went to the front door and called the sergeant and his men. One of the plainclothes men was obviously embarrassed, but that didn’t stop him from doing his job properly.

The police finished downstairs and went up. Roger heard the heavy movements of the men upstairs and thought how often he had been on exactly the same quest.

He had searched with a thoroughness which had brought the tension of the people waiting in another part of the house to breaking point. He had worked with a grim determination to find some evidence of complicity in crime and to break his victim’s resistance. After the search, if it proved successful, came the arrest, the charge, the magistrate’s court, the gradual collection and piecing together of evidence, the final day of the assize trial. That last stage was often absurdly short in view of the weary weeks of preparations which had preceded it. Jury, judge, sentence — and prison.