what the detective was "driving at." He took another long look at
Holymead, who was then within a few yards of the plantation on his way
to the gates, and remarked, in a hesitating tone, as though to justify
his failure:

"Well, you see, sir, when he was coming in it was the front view I saw,
now I can only see his back."

But before he had finished speaking Crewe had left him and was following
the K.C. Holymead had gone into the house without a walking-stick, and
had reappeared carrying one on his arm. Crewe admired the cool audacity
which had prompted Holymead to go into a house where a murder had been
committed to recover his stick under the very eyes of the police, and he
immediately formed the conclusion that the K.C. had come to the house to
recover the stick for some urgent reason possibly not unconnected with
the crime. And it was apparent that Holymead was a shrewd judge of human
nature, Crewe reflected, for he calculated that the rareness of the
quality of observation, even in those who, like Flack, were supposed to
keep their eyes open, would permit him to do so unnoticed.

As Crewe went down the path he beckoned to the boy Joe, who at the moment
was acting the part of a comic dentist binding a recalcitrant patient to
a chair, using an immense old-fashioned straight-backed chair which stood
in the hall, for his stage setting. Joe overtook his master as he entered
the ornamental plantation in front of the house, and Crewe quickly
whispered his instructions, as the retreating figure of the K.C. threaded
the wood towards the gates.

"When I catch up level with him, Joe, you are to run into him
accidentally from behind, and knock his stick off his arm, so that it