Читать книгу A King by Night онлайн

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"I wouldn't say that," said the gratified Timms. "Of course, it is clear that this is a corroboration of the Eastleigh farmer's story—Eastleigh is only about fifteen miles from Winchester."

"Wonderful!" breathed the beaming Selby. "The coincidence would never have occurred to me. Most amazing mind you've got, Timms! Good morning."

They walked in silence until they came within sight of the big Trust Buildings.

"Bill," said Selby suddenly, "this uncleanly aborigine—I am not referring to the pathetic Mr. Timms, but to Judge Warren's visitor—is getting on my nerves. An ordinary thug is neither spectacular nor alarming. But a seventy-two inch assassin of large proportions, who travels the country in a costly car, and who appears now in the north, now in the south, and always has a definite objective, is both abnormal and unnatural. I want to catch that man pretty badly, and I want an excuse. For the moment it doesn't belong to my department, because I only deal with foreign crooks, passport forgers, missing millionaires and other undesirables that come within the purview of the Foreign Office, whose jolly old slave I am. The police will never catch the Terror, because he doesn't belong to any category. You have to hold the union ticket of the Amalgamated Burglars' Association, and have your fingerprints registered at headquarters, before the regular police will take even a languid interest in you. But as I am one of these people who are happy only when I am doing somebody else's work, as soon as I have put the Jam Sahib into a safe deposit, I'm going down to Judge Warren in search of information."