CHAPTER VI
SUNDRY DOINGS AT FOSSE
I found Macgillivray reading Greek with his feet on the mantelpiece and the fire out. He was a bit of a scholar and kept up his classics. Of all my friends he was the one who had aged least. His lean, dark head and smooth, boyish face were just as I remembered them twenty years ago. I hadn’t seen him for months, and he gave me a great welcome, rang for beer to which he knew I was partial, and settled me in his best armchair.
‘Why this honour?’ he asked. ‘Is it friendship or business? A sudden craving for my company, or a mess you want to be helped out of?’
‘Both,’ I said. ‘But business first.’
‘A job for the Yard?’
‘No-o. Not just yet, anyhow. I want some information. I’ve just got on the track of a rather ugly affair.’
He whistled. ‘You have a high
