The Man in the Queue quotes

“Chap fainted,” said someone. No one moved for a moment or two.

Minding one’s own business in a crowd today is as much an instinct of self-preservation as a chameleon’s versatility.

Perhaps someone would claim the chap. But no one did; and so a man with more social instinct or more self-importance than the rest moved forward to help the collapsed one.

And rising slantwise from the grey tweed of his coat was a little silver thing that winked wickedly in the baleful light.

It was the handle of a dagger.

Almost before the cry of “Police!” had gone up, the constable had come from his job of pacification at the other end of the queue. At the first of the woman’s shrieks he had turned.

Her mouth was hidden behind a barricade of handkerchief which she kept pressed to it. Grant wished that she would take it down for a moment.

He had a theory that mouths gave away more than eyes⁠—certainly where women were concerned.

“Were you standing behind him when he fell?”

but changed his mind. He knew on the instant that she would say no, and that he would have given away the fact that he was aware that there was anything to be aware of. He repeated the description and she said:

“A saint! How quaint! And how inappropriate!⁠—And yet, in a big undertaking like a crime, I suppose you’d want someone’s blessing on it.”

Cool and sweet she put out her left hand for his cup, and as she replenished it he watched her steady wrist and impassive manner and wondered if this too could be unreasonableness on his part.

“

Trifling things, these,

” he remarked in his flat amiable voice. But it was his right hand that he had used to stop it.

The midnight streets of London—always so much more beautiful than the choppy crowded ones of the daytime—fascinated him.

At noon London made you a present of an entertainment, rich and varied and amusing. But at midnight she made you a present of herself; at midnight you could hear her breathe.

When at length he turned into the road where he lived he had come to the stage of walking automatically, and a starry mist possessed his brain. For a little while Grant had “shut his eyes.”

Grant followed his unexpected host meekly enough; he had not yet got his information, and this seemed to be the only way of getting it. Moreover, a detective officer never throws away the chance of making an acquaintance.

If Scotland Yard has a motto it is You Never Know.

Over lunch he learned that Mr. Yeudall had never to his knowledge seen the man he was looking for. He knew by sight or personally all the performers at the festival as well as a great number of those merely interested in it.

Grant guessed that in his mind was a picture of the heartbreaking years of squalid rooms in squalid towns, twice-nightly performances, and the awful ever-present fear of the bird.

Gollan had sung long for his supper; it was no wonder that the feast choked him.

Then the producer. Then Ray Marcable.

“No time is wasted that earns such a wealth of gratitude as I feel for you,” said Struwwelpeter. “I was in the depths when you arrived. I can never paint on Monday mornings. There should be no such thing.

Monday mornings should be burnt out of the calendar with prussic acid.

And you have made a Monday morning actually memorable! It is a great achievement. Sometime when you are not too busy breaking the law, come back, and I’ll paint your portrait. You have a charming head.”

Now he did not want an arrest until he had time to think things over for a bit.

The nightmare of a Scotland Yard officer’s whole life is Wrongful Arrest.

He turned to Ratcliffe, and allowed him to know that an arrest was imminent; they had located their man.

He had evidently decided that the game was up. It remained to be seen, though, whether he would come quietly when the time came. At least Grant was glad to see that flicker of antagonism in his eyes.

It is an unlovely job to arrest a craven.

A police officer would much sooner be hacked on the shins than clasped about the knees. There would quite obviously be no knee-clasping on this occasion.

It remained to be seen, though, whether he would come quietly when the time came. At least Grant was glad to see that flicker of antagonism in his eyes. It is an unlovely job to arrest a craven.

A police officer would much sooner be hacked on the shins than clasped about the knees.

There would quite obviously be no knee-clasping on this occasion.

Grant glanced at his captive and looked away at once.

It is indecent to pry too far into even a murderer’s soul.

When he looked back again, the man’s eyes were closed and his face was a mask of such unspeakable misery that Grant was unexpectedly moved. He had cared for her, then—it had not been merely opportunism.

“Tut, tut, Grant, you’ve been at the Yard for I don’t know how many years, and you’re looking at this late stage for reasonable murders. You need a holiday, man.

Lamont probably killed Sorrell because the way he ate had got on his nerves.

Besides, it isn’t any of our business to fit psychology to people or to provide motives or anything of that sort. So don’t worry your head.

“Well,” she said, “you knew much more about it than I did. I never saw him till three days previously. I liked him—but that didn’t make him guilty or innocent.

Besides, I’d rather be a brute than a fool.

”

They walked in silence along the trim front towards Holywell. Everything was trim, with that well-ordered trimness that is so typically Eastbourne. Even the sea was trim—and slightly exclusive.

And Beachy Head had the air of having been set down there as a good finish off to the front, and of being perfectly conscious of the fact.

They had not been walking for more than ten minutes when Grant said, “We’ll go down to the beach now. I’m almost certain we passed the couple I want some time ago. They are down on the shingle.”

“Oh? You don’t think she’s clever, deep down?”

“I don’t think she has a deep down.”

“You think she’s just shallow? But surely—” He considered.