Anyway, it is no crime to own a ledger, or even three.

By-the-way, when did he buy these books ?" "Yesterday," said Whiteside, "early in the morning, before Lyne's opened.
How did your interview with Miss Rider go off ?" Tarling shrugged his shoulders.

He felt a strange reluctance to discuss the girl with the police officer, and realised just how big a fool he was in allowing her sweetness to drug him.
"I am convinced that, whoever she may suspect, she knows nothing of the murder," he said shortly.
"Then she _does_ suspect somebody ?" Tarling nodded.
"Who ?" Again Tarling hesitated.
"I think she suspects Milburgh," he said.
He put his hand in the inside of his jacket and took out a pocket case, opened it, and drew forth the two cards bearing the finger impressions he had taken of Odette Rider.

It required more than an ordinary effort of will to do this, though he would have found it difficult to explain just what tricks his emotions were playing.
"Here are the impressions you wanted," he said.

"Will you take them ?" Whiteside took the cards with a nod and examined the inky smudges, and all the time Tarling's heart stood still, for Inspector Whiteside was the recognised authority of the Police Intelligence Department on finger prints and their characteristics.
The survey was a long one.
Tarling remembered the scene for years afterwards; the sunlit path, the straggling idlers, the carriages pursuing their leisurely way along the walks, and the stiff military figure of Whiteside standing almost to attention, his keen eyes peering down at the little cards which he held in the finger-tips of both hands.