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says “Hrrrmph” – and how can you help thinking, blimp in person! Wasn’t that the bell? I have to answer my own door to-night. Anna’s at the cinema.’
    The General sat and listened. He heard the front door open, and Mrs. Artside’s voice, and a man’s voice in reply; and something about Rupert, and ‘Sam can look after him’, and then the drawing-room door opened and Liz came back, followed by the Chairman of the county council.
    ‘Evening, General. It’s turned cold, hasn’t it.’ Then to Liz. ‘If the car takes Rupert home and comes back, you’ll have to put up with me for an hour. Do you think you can stand it? I’m in need of decent company. I’ve been spending the last two hours with a lot of old women who call themselves a committee. Is that for me? Thank you very much.’
    Bob Cleeve accepted the armchair and the coffee cup; lowered himself into the former and lifted the latter to his lips; drank and put it down.
    ‘Hrrrmph,’ he said genially.

 
     
Chapter Two
ANDANTE
     
    Berowne:
    ‘And I, forsooth, in love,
    I that have been Love’s whip?
    A very beadle to a humorous sigh,
    A critic, nay, a night watch constable.’
     
    ‘In theory,’ said Cleeve, ‘only policemen should be made Chief Constables. After all, they know how the British police system works. They’ve been in it since boyhood. It no longer has power to annoy them. So they’re the obvious choice.’
    ‘Then why not choose them,’ said Liz.
    ‘It’s a sore point. Shortage of suitable candidates.’
    ‘No officer class,’ said the General.
    ‘It would depend on what you meant by officers. In one sense all policemen are officers—’
    ‘I always call a policeman “officer” when I don’t know what else to call him,’ agreed Liz. ‘If I see he’s got three stripes, then I promote him to sergeant.’
    ‘You know perfectly well what I mean by an officer,’ said the General crossly.
    ‘In our case,’ said Cleeve, ‘no question arises. We’ve got a good one, who happens to be a policeman. I had dinner with him this evening.’
    ‘Tom Pearce is all right,’ agreed the General. ‘Does he run you, or do you run him?’
    ‘It’s a moot point,’ said Cleeve. ‘As Chairman of the county council, I’m automatically head of the Standing Joint Committee, and in theory the Standing Joint Committee superintends the county police. Actually all we do is appoint a good Chief Constable and let him rip.’
    ‘And Tom is a good one?’ asked Liz.
    ‘Yes,’ said Cleeve simply. ‘I think so. He’s unusually co-operative, I should say. And he’s not above asking for advice. When he’s got anything really in his hair he comes round to a meal and talks about it.’
    ‘And what is it in his hair just now?’
    Cleeve looked startled. Liz said, ‘Deduction. You told us he came to dinner with you to-night.’
    ‘Our chief headache at the moment,’ said Cleeve solemnly, ‘is grocers.’
    ‘Grocers generally?’
    ‘Well, grocers who happen to be county councillors. He’s got a big shop in Bramshott. Mind you, I’ve nothing against grocers. I know some very nice ones. But this one’s a particularly—a particularly grocerish sort of grocer.’
    ‘He keeps a lady in a cage, most cruelly all day, and makes her count and calls her Miss, until she fades away,’ suggested Liz.
    ‘What? Yes, that sort of thing. Well, this one’s moving heaven and earth to get the police to divert the traffic out of the Market Square, down a side street, and back along South Street. A sort of one-way traffic system. Every time we meet he’s got a fresh reason for it. Overcrowding, parking offences, congestion of pavements. This time he’d managed to tie it up with immorality amongst shop assistants.’
    ‘He sounds a persistent type,’ said Liz. ‘I suppose he’s got some reason for it.’
    ‘Of course he’s got a reason. His shop’s in South Street. His chief rival’s in the Market Square.’
    ‘Why don’t you make it