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the alliteration wouldn’t be so good. And Dupin, of course, is in honour of the great Poe.’
    â€˜The great po?’ This, from a lady, appeared to leave the Captain a little shocked. ‘In mess games our subalterns used to – But never mind.’
    â€˜Edgar Allan Poe, the founder of detective literature. At the annual dinner we are addressed by a guest of honour – usually an eminent criminologist. Tonight it is to be Sir John Appleby. I believe he was at one time head of the CID at New Scotland Yard. Or perhaps it was something even more distinguished than that.’
    â€˜Talking about cunning ways of bringing it off, eh?’ New horizons seemed to be opening before Captain Bulkington. ‘Straight from the horse’s mouth, and all that? Dashed interesting.’
    â€˜I don’t at all know what subject he will choose. But he is said to have solved the most impenetrable mysteries. Real-life ones, that is.’
    â€˜Ah, real life!’ The Captain had recaptured his sombre tone. ‘The trouble with you people’ – and he tapped Miss Pringle’s book – ‘is that you need such deuced peculiar circumstances. In this one, for example, you need a cathedral. Now, how is a fellow to come by that? A local parish church would be a different matter. But how, I repeat, is a fellow to come by a cathedral? It just isn’t on.’
    â€˜I’m not sure that I quite follow you.’ Miss Pringle was wondering whether, had she chosen a more modest ecclesiastical edifice as setting for the mystery in question, she would have rated a good beta-plus. She was also wondering, if only fleetingly, whether Captain Bulkington mightn’t be a trifle mad.
    â€˜A mere random thought.’ The Captain waved a dismissive hand. ‘This crooks’ affair – what else does it go in for?’
    â€˜We have a little quarterly journal, with articles on things that interest us – professionally, that is.’
    â€˜Good Lord! False beards, and silencers, and secret codes, and poisons unknown to science – all that?’
    â€˜Certainly things of that sort. And police procedure, and how criminal trials are really conducted, and so on. It is so important to get one’s facts right. To control one’s all too powerful imagination.’
    â€˜Can anybody buy the thing? Could I get it at Smith’s?’
    â€˜Our journal? Well, no. One doesn’t want such information in the wrong hands. Not in the hands of people making a living out of crime. One has to belong.’
    â€˜To this crooks’ club? Can anybody join – I mean by paying a subscription?’
    â€˜Oh, no.’ Miss Pringle tried not to betray amusement. ‘One must have contributed to detective literature.’
    â€˜Published a yarn, eh? It can’t be too hard to do that.’
    â€˜I suppose not.’ Secretly, Miss Pringle did not agree. ‘It’s quite competitive,’ she said.
    â€˜One would have to have a head for it, of course.’ For some moments Captain Bulkington brooded darkly. ‘Thought of it myself, as a matter of fact.’
    â€˜A good many people have.’
    â€˜Rather jolly to have one’s name to a book. Once started on a manual of cavalry training. Only, just then, they pretty well stopped having cavalry.’
    â€˜We shan’t stop having crime.’
    â€˜Always with us, eh? You have a point there.’
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    During the course of this stimulating conversation the train had traversed the greater part of one of the home counties, and both Windsor Castle and Eton College Chapel (always agreeable objects in Miss Pringle’s regard) had appeared briefly on the horizon. They were a signal, moreover, to begin preparing for the end of her journey, and she thought with satisfaction of the porters who, although now so diminished a band at the London railway termini, still had the trick of being available outside the