Five
The Chief Constable¹’s eyebrows² climbed slowly up his forehead in a vainattempt to reach the receding³ line of his grey hair. He cast his eyes up tothe ceiling and then down again to the papers on his desk.
“It beggars description!” he said.
The young man whose business it was to make the right responses to theChief Constable, said:
“Yes, sir.”
“A pretty kettle of fish,” muttered Major Finney. He tapped with his fin-gers on the table. “Is Huish here?” he asked.
“Yes, sir. Superintendent⁴ Huish came about five minutes ago.”
“Right,” said the Chief Constable. “Send him in, will you?”
Superintendent Huish was a tall, sad-looking man. His air of melancholywas so profound that no one would have believed that he could be the lifeand soul of a children’s party, cracking jokes and bringing pennies out oflittle boys’ ears, much to their delight. The Chief Constable said:
“Morning, Huish, this is a pretty kettle of fish we’ve got here. What d’youthink of it?”
Superintendent Huish breathed heavily and sat down in the chair indic-ated.
“It seems as though we made a mistake two years ago,” he said. “Thisfellow—what’s-his-name—”
The Chief Constable rustled⁵ his papers. “Calory—no, Calgary. Some sortof a professor. Absentminded bloke, maybe? People like that often vagueabout times and all that sort of thing?” There was perhaps a hint of appealin his voice, but Huish did not respond. He said:
“He’s a kind of scientist, I understand.”
“So that you think we’ve got to accept what he says?”
“Well,” said Huish, “Sir Reginald seems to have accepted it, and I don’tsuppose there’s anything would get past him.” This was a tribute to theDirector of Public Prosecutions⁶.
“No,” said Major Finney, rather

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