"
Half an hour later Chief Inspector Kerry came out of New Scotland
Yard, and, walking down on to the Embankment, boarded a Norwood
tramcar. The weather remained damp and gloomy, but upon the red face
of Chief Inspector Kerry, as he mounted to the upper deck of the car,
rested an expression which might have been described as one of cheery
truculence. Where other passengers, coat collars upturned, gazed
gloomily from the windows at the yellow murk overhanging the river,
Kerry looked briskly about him, smiling pleasurably.
He was homeward bound, and when he presently alighted and went
swinging along Spenser Road towards his house, he was still smiling.
He regarded the case as having developed into a competition between
himself and the man appointed by Whitehall. And it was just such a
position, disconcerting to one of less aggressive temperament, which
stimulated Chief Inspector Kerry and put him in high good humor.
Mrs. Kerry, arrayed in a serviceable rain-coat, and wearing a plain
felt hat, was standing by the dining-room door as Kerry entered. She
had a basket on her arm. "I was waiting for ye, Dan," she said simply.
He kissed her affectionately, put his arm about her waist, and the two
entered the cosy little room.
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