Down Argent Street, Mr Samuel Goldspink had begun business in the clothing trade when Queen Victoria found little at which to be amused. He had prospered less because of his own acumen than by the growth and the wealth of the city he had watched mature. He was an ingratiating little man, having an infectious chuckle and a store of jokes against himself, so that his customers found it pleasant to be overcharged.

Mr Goldspink was fifty-nine and a bachelor, seemingly hale and hearty, yet he collapsed and died inelegantly right in front of his own haberdashery counter. The doctor was dissatisfied with the manner of his passing, and the post-mortem revealed that the cause of death was cyanide poisoning; and, as it was quickly established that Goldspink had been in no mood to commit suicide, the effect was not dissimilar to that of a stick thrust into a bull ant’s nest-Detective Sergeant Bill Crome being the chief bull ant.

Crome hadn’t had a murder for three years, and to the unexpectedness of this one could be attributed his failure to net the poisoner.

On facts being winnowed from confusion they formed the vertebra of a common enough background.

The time of the tragedy was three-twenty, or thereabouts, on a Friday afternoon, the busiest time of the week. The shop was crowded, and the eleven assistants were all hard at it, the most experienced serving two customers at the one time. Goldspink seldom served behind the counters. He was his own shopwalker, receiving his customers as his friends, talking volubly, escorting them to the departments they needed, and seeing to their comfort if they had to wait to be served.