At this outrageous insult Mr. Mansus was silent; what he might have said, or what further provocation he might have received may be never known, for at that moment, the Chief himself walked in.
The Chief of the Police in these days was a grey man, rather tired, with a hawk nose and deep eyes that glared under shaggy eyebrows and he was a terror to all men of his department save to T. X. who respected nothing on earth and very little elsewhere. He nodded curtly to Mansus.
"Well, T. X.," he said, "what have you discovered about our friend Kara?"
He turned from T. X. to the discomforted inspector.
"Very little," said T. X. "I've had Mansus on the job."
"And you've found nothing, eh'?" growled the Chief.
"He has found all that it is possible to find," said T. X. "We do not perform miracles in this department. Sir George, nor can we pick up the threads of a case at five minutes' notice."
