Constable Wiseman lived in the bosom of his admiring family in a small cottage on the Bexhill Road. That "my father was a policeman" was the proud boast of two small boys, a boast which entitled them to no small amount of respect, because P. C. Wiseman was not only honored in his own circle but throughout the village in which he dwelt.

He was, in the first place, a town policeman, as distinct from a county policeman, though he wore the badge and uniform of the Sussex constabulary. It was felt that a town policeman had more in common with crime, had a vaster experience, and was in consequence a more helpful adviser than a man whose duties began and ended in the patrolling of country lanes and law-abiding villages where nothing more exciting than an occasional dog fight or a charge of poaching served to fill the hiatus of constabulary life.

Constable Wiseman was looked upon as a shrewd fellow, a man to whom might be brought the delicate problems which occasionally perplexed and confused the bucolic mind. He had settled the vexed question as to whether a policeman could or could not enter a house where a man was beating his wife, and had decided that such a trespass could only be committed if the lady involved should utter piercing cries of "Murder!"

He added significantly that the constable who was called upon must be the constable on duty, and not an ornament of the force who by accident was a resident in their midst.

The problem of the straying chicken and the egg that is laid on alien property, the point of law involved in the question as to when a servant should give notice and the date from which her notice should count--all these matters came within Constable Wiseman's purview, and were solved to the satisfaction of all who brought their little obscurities for solution.

But it was in his own domestic circle that Constable Wiseman--appropriately named, as all agreed--shone with an effulgence that was almost dazzling, and was a source of irritation to the male relatives on his wife's side, one of whom had unfortunately come within the grasp of the law over a matter of a snared rabbit and was in consequence predisposed to anarchy in so far as the abolition of law and order affected the police force.

Constable Wiseman sat at tea one summer evening, and about the spotless white cloth which covered the table was grouped all that Constable Wiseman might legally call his. Tea was a function, and to the younger members of the family meant just tea and bread and butter. To Constable Wiseman it meant luxuries of a varied and costly nature. His taste ranged from rump steak to Yarmouth bloaters, and once he had introduced a foreign delicacy--foreign to the village, which had never known before the reason for their existence--sweetbreads.

The conversation, which was well sustained by Mr. Wiseman, was usually of himself, his wife being content to punctuate his autobiography with such encouraging phrases as, "Dear, dear!" "Well, whatever next!" the children doing no more than ask in a whisper for more food. This they did at regular and frequent intervals, but because of their whispers they were supposed to be unheard.

Constable Wiseman spoke about himself because he knew of nothing more interesting to talk about. His evening conversation usually took the form of a very full resume of his previous day's experience. He left the impression upon his wife--and glad enough she was to have such an impression--that Eastbourne was a well-conducted town mainly as a result of P. C. Wiseman's ceaseless and tireless efforts.

"I never had a clew yet that I never follered to the bitter end," said the preening constable.

"You remember when Raggett's orchard was robbed--who found the thieves?"

"You did, of course; I'm sure you did," said Mrs. Wiseman, jigging her youngest on her knee, the youngest not having arrived at the age where he recognized the necessity for expressing his desires in whispers.

"Who caught them three-card-trick men after the Lewes races last year?" went on Constable Wiseman passionately. "Who has had more summonses for smoking chimneys than any other man in the force? Some people," he added, as he rose heavily and took down his tunic, which hung on the wall--"some people would ask for promotion; but I'm perfectly satisfied. I'm not one of those ambitious sort. Why, I wouldn't know at all what to do with myself if they made me a sergeant."

"You deserve it, anyway," said Mrs. Wiseman.

"I don't deserve anything I don't want," said Mr. Wiseman loftily. "I've learned a few things, too, but I've never made use of what's come to me officially to get me pushed along. You'll hear something in a day or two," he said mysteriously, "and in high life, too, in a manner of speaking--that is, if you can call old Minute high life, which I very much doubt."

"You don't say so!" said Mrs. Wiseman, appropriately amazed.

Her husband nodded his head.

"There's trouble up there," he said. "From certain information I've received, there has been a big row between young Mr. Merrill and the old man, and the C. I. D. people have been down about it. What's more," he said, "I could tell a thing or two. I've seen that boy look at the old man as though he'd like to kill him. You wouldn't believe it, would you, but I know, and it didn't happen so long ago either. He was always snubbing him when young Merrill was down here acting as his secretary, and as good as called him a fool in front of my face when I served him with that summons for having his lights up. You'll hear something one of these days."

Constable Wiseman was an excellent prophet, vague as his prophecy was.

He went out of the cottage to his duty in a complacent frame of mind, which was not unusual, for Constable Wiseman was nothing if not satisfied with his fate. His complacency continued until a little after seven o'clock that evening.

It so happened that Constable Wiseman, no less than every other member of the force on duty that night, had much to think about, much that was at once exciting and absorbing. It had been whispered before the evening parade that Sergeant Smith was to leave the force. There was some talk of his being dismissed, but it was clear that he had been given the opportunity of resigning, for he was still doing duty, which would not have been the case had he been forcibly removed.

Sergeant Smith's mien and attitude had confirmed the rumor. Nobody was surprised, since this dour officer had been in trouble before. Twice had he been before the deputy chief constable for neglect of, and being drunk while on, duty. On the earlier occasions he had had remarkable escapes. Some people talked of influence, but it is more likely that the man's record had helped him, for he was a first-class policeman with a nose for crime, absolutely fearless, and had, moreover, assisted in the capture of one or two very desperate criminals who had made their way to the south-coast town.

His last offense, however, was too grave to overlook. His inspector, going the rounds, had missed him, and after a search he was discovered outside a public house. It is no great crime to be found outside a public house, particularly when an officer has a fairly extensive area to cover, and in this respect he was well within the limits of that area. But it must be explained that the reason the sergeant was outside the public house was because he had challenged a fellow carouser to fight, and at the moment he was discovered he was stripped to the waist and setting about his task with rare workmanlike skill.

He was also drunk.

To have retained his services thereafter would have been little less than a crying scandal. There is no doubt, however, that Sergeant Smith had made a desperate attempt to use the influence behind him, and use it to its fullest extent.

He had had one stormy interview with John Minute, and had planned another. Constable Wiseman, patrolling the London Road, his mind filled with the great news, was suddenly confronted with the object of his thoughts. The sergeant rode up to where the constable was standing in a professional attitude at the corner of two roads, and jumped off with the manner of a man who has an object in view.

"Wiseman," he said--and his voice was such as to suggest that he had been drinking again--"where will you be at ten o'clock to-night?"

Constable Wiseman raised his eyes in thought.

"At ten o'clock, Sergeant, I shall be opposite the gates of the cemetery."

The sergeant looked round left and right.

"I am going to see Mr. Minute on a matter of business," he said, "and you needn't mention the fact."

"I keep myself to myself," began Constable Wiseman. "What I see with one eye goes out of the other, in the manner of speaking--"

The sergeant nodded, stepped on to his bicycle again, turned it about, and went at full speed down the gentle incline toward Weald Lodge. He made no secret of his visit, but rode through the wide gates up the gravel drive to the front of the house, rang the bell, and to the servant who answered demanded peremptorily to see Mr. Minute.

John Minute received him in the library, where the previous interviews had taken place. Minute waited until the servant had gone and the door was closed, and then he said:

"Now, Crawley, there's no sense in coming to me; I can do nothing for you."

The sergeant put his helmet on the table, walked to a sideboard where a tray and decanter stood, and poured himself out a stiff dose of whisky without invitation. John Minute watched him without any great resentment. This was not civilized Eastbourne they were in. They were back in the old free-and-easy days of Gwelo, where men did not expect invitations to drink.

Smith--or Crawley, to give him his real name--tossed down half a tumbler of neat whisky and turned, wiping his heavy mustache with the back of his hand.

"So you can't do anything, can't you?" he mimicked. "Well, I'm going to show you that you can, and that you will!"

He put up his hand to check the words on John Minute's lips.

"There's no sense in your putting that rough stuff over me about your being able to send me to jail, because you wouldn't do it. It doesn't suit your book, John Minute, to go into the court and testify against me. Too many things would come out in the witness box, and you well know it--besides, Rhodesia is a long way off!"

"I know a place which isn't so far distant," said the other, looking up from his chair--"a place called Felixstowe, for example. There's another place called Cromer. I've been in consultation with a gentleman you may have heard of, a Mr. Saul Arthur Mann."

"Saul Arthur Mann," repeated the other slowly. "I've never heard of him."

"You would not, but he has heard of you," said John Minute calmly. "The fact is, Crawley, there's a big bad record against you, between your serious crimes in Rhodesia and your blackmail of to-day. I've a few facts about you which will interest you. I know the date you came to this country, which I didn't know before, and I know how you earned your living until you found me. I know of some shares in a non-existent Rhodesian mine which you sold to a feeble-minded gentleman at Cromer, and to a lady, equally feeble-minded, at Felixstowe. I've not only got the shares you sold, with your signature as a director, but I have letters and receipts signed by you. It has cost me a lot of money to get them, but it was well worth it."

Crawley's face was livid. He took a step toward the other, but recoiled, for at the first hint of danger John Minute had pulled the revolver he invariably carried.

"Keep just where you are, Crawley!" he said. "You are close enough now to be unpleasant."

"So you've got my record, have you?" said the other, with an oath. "Tucked away with your marriage lines, I'll bet, and the certificate of birth of the kids you left to starve with their mother."

"Get out of here!" said Minute, with dangerous quiet. "Get away while you're safe!"

There was something in his eye which cowed the half-drunken man ............