Chapter 4
THE TALE OF A DETECTIVEGABRIEL SYME was not merely a detective who pretended to be a
poet; he was really a poet who had become a detective. Nor was his
hatred of anarchy hypocritical. He was one of those who are driven
early in life into too conservative an attitude by the bewildering
folly of most revolutionists. He had not attained it by any tame
tradition. His respectability was spontaneous and sudden, a
rebellion against rebellion. He came of a family of cranks, in
which all the oldest people had all the newest notions. One of his
uncles always walked about without a hat, and another had made an
unsuccessful attempt to walk about with a hat and nothing else. His
father cultivated art and self-realisation; his mother went in for
simplicity and hygiene. Hence the ch
