That's why I am here." The great man put his arms akimbo, the backs of his big hands resting on his hips.
"Very well.

Go on.

Only no details, pray.

Spare me the details." "You shall not be troubled with them, Sir Ethelred," the Assistant Commissioner began, with a calm and untroubled assurance.

While he was speaking the hands on the face of the clock behind the great man's back--a heavy, glistening affair of massive scrolls in the same dark marble as the mantelpiece, and with a ghostly, evanescent tick--had moved through the space of seven minutes.