The Clue of the Twisted Candles | Page 9

otherwise friendly
power.
It is very certain that when the minister of a tiny power which shall be
nameless was suddenly recalled by his government and brought to trial
in his native land for putting into circulation spurious bonds, it was
somebody from the department which T. X. controlled, who burgled
His Excellency's house, burnt the locks from his safe and secured the
necessary incriminating evidence.
I say it is fairly certain and here I am merely voicing the opinion of
very knowledgeable people indeed, heads of public departments who
speak behind their hands, mysterious under-secretaries of state who
discuss things in whispers in the remote corners of their clubrooms and
the more frank views of American correspondents who had no
hesitation in putting those views into print for the benefit of their
readers.
That T. X. had a more legitimate occupation we know, for it was that
flippant man whose outrageous comment on the Home Office

Administration is popularly supposed to have sent one Home Secretary
to his grave, who traced the Deptford murderers through a labyrinth of
perjury and who brought to book Sir Julius Waglite though he had
covered his trail of defalcation through the balance sheets of thirty-four
companies.
On the night of March 3rd, T. X. sat in his inner office interviewing a
disconsolate inspector of metropolitan police, named Mansus.
In appearance T. X. conveyed the impression of extreme youth, for his
face was almost boyish and it was only when you looked at him closely
and saw the little creases about his eyes, the setting of his straight
mouth, that you guessed he was on the way to forty. In his early days
he had been something of a poet, and had written a slight volume of
"Woodland Lyrics," the mention of which at this later stage was
sufficient to make him feel violently unhappy.
In manner he was tactful but persistent, his language was at times
marked by a violent extravagance and he had had the distinction of
having provoked, by certain correspondence which had seen the light,
the comment of a former Home Secretary that "it was unfortunate that
Mr. Meredith did not take his position with the seriousness which was
expected from a public official."
His language was, as I say, under great provocation, violent and
unusual. He had a trick of using words which never were on land or sea,
and illustrating his instruction or his admonition with the quaintest
phraseology.
Now he was tilted back in his office chair at an alarming angle,
scowling at his distressed subordinate who sat on the edge of a chair at
the other side of his desk.
"But, T. X.," protested the Inspector, "there was nothing to be found."
It was the outrageous practice of Mr. Meredith to insist upon his
associates calling him by his initials, a practice which had earnt
disapproval in the highest quarters.

"Nothing is to be found!" he repeated wrathfully. "Curious Mike!"
He sat up with a suddenness which caused the police officer to start
back in alarm.
"Listen," said T. X., grasping an ivory paperknife savagely in his hand
and tapping his blotting-pad to emphasize his words, "you're a pie!"
"I'm a policeman," said the other patiently.
"A policeman!" exclaimed the exasperated T. X. "You're worse than a
pie, you're a slud! I'm afraid I shall never make a detective of you," he
shook his head sorrowfully at the smiling Mansus who had been in the
police force when T. X. was a small boy at school, "you are neither
Wise nor Wily; you combine the innocence of a Baby with the
grubbiness of a County Parson - you ought to be in the choir."
At this outrageous insult Mr. Mansus was silent; what he might have
said, or what further provocation he might have received may be never
known, for at that moment, the Chief himself walked in.
The Chief of the Police in these days was a grey man, rather tired, with
a hawk nose and deep eyes that glared under shaggy eyebrows and he
was a terror to all men of his department save to T. X. who respected
nothing on earth and very little elsewhere. He nodded curtly to Mansus.
"Well, T. X.," he said, "what have you discovered about our friend
Kara?"
He turned from T. X. to the discomforted inspector.
"Very little," said T. X. "I've had Mansus on the job."
"And you've found nothing, eh?" growled the Chief.
"He has found all that it is possible to find," said T. X. "We do not
perform miracles in this department, Sir George, nor can we pick up the
threads of a case at five minutes' notice."

Sir George Haley grunted.
"Mansus has done his best," the other went on easily, "but it is rather