V – The Missing Policeman

V – The Missing Policeman

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'THE TROUBLE ABOUT REEDER,' said Gaylor to the superintendent in the course of a long telephone conversation, 'is that you feel he does know something which he shouldn't know. I've never seen him in a case where he hasn't given me the impression that he was the guilty party—he knew so much about the crime.'

'Humour him,' said the superintendent. 'He'll be in the Public Prosecutor's Department one of these days. He never was in a case that he didn't make himself an accessory by pinching half the clues.'

At five o'clock the detective shook the sleeper awake.

'You'd better go home, old man,' he said. 'We'll leave an officer in charge here.'

Mr Reeder rose with a groan, splashed some soda-water from a syphon into a glass and drank it.

'I must stay, I'm afraid, un……