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A mistrust of established reputations was strictly in character with the Assistant Commissioner’s ability as detector.
And as thought is no respecter of persons, the thought of Chief Inspector Heat took a threatening and prophetic shape. “You, my boy,” he said to himself, keeping his round and habitually roving eyes fastened upon the Assistant Commissioner’s face—“you, my boy, you don’t know your place, and your place won’t know you very long either, I bet.”
“We can’t put up with the innocence of nasty little children,” said the great and expanded personage, expanding a little more, as it were. The haughty drooping glance struck crushingly the carpet at the Assistant Commissioner’s feet. “They’ll have to get a hard rap on the knuckles over this affair. We must be in a position to—What is your general idea, stated shortly? No need to go into details.”
The slight approving movement of the Assistant Commissioner’s head went far to pacify the resentful astonishment of the renowned officer.
They threatened me with heavy pains and punishments; and the Polizeidiener whom I had struck, assured me, while stanching his still-bleeding nose, that I should have at least “three months for this.” After several hours’ waiting in the dreary office, I was abruptly called into the commissioner’s room.
I will instance but in two particulars: In that very place he saith, “Admonition is a spiritual censure in the Commissioner’s opinion.” Whence knows he that to be my opinion?
The Assistant Commissioner’s figure before this big and rustic Presence had the frail slenderness of a reed addresssing an oak. And indeed the unbroken record of that man’s descent surpassed in the number of centuries the age of the oldest oak in the country. “No. As far as one can be positive about anything I can assure you that it is not.” “Yes.
I quite appreciate the excellent watch kept on them by your men. On the other hand, this, for the public, does not amount to more than a confession of ignorance.” The Assistant Commissioner’s delivery was leisurely, as it were cautious.
On the other hand, he admitted to himself that it was difficult to preserve one’s reputation if rank outsiders were going to take a hand in the business. Outsiders are the bane of the police as of other professions. The tone of the Assistant Commissioner’s remarks had been sour enough to set one’s teeth on edge. And since breakfast Chief Inspector Heat had not managed to get anything to eat.
Not one of them had half the spunk of this or that burglar he had known. Not half—not one-tenth. At headquarters the Chief Inspector was admitted at once to the Assistant Commissioner’s private room. He found him, pen in hand, bent over a great table bestrewn with papers, as if worshipping an enormous double inkstand of bronze and crystal.
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