“Yes, yes.  But are you an inch nearer with all these speculations?  Can you get nearer than I am now without them?”

“Well, perhaps not,” Hewitt replied.  “I don’t profess at this moment to know the criminal; you do.  I’ll concede you that point for the present.  But you don’t offer an opinion as to who removed Rameau’s body—­which I think I know.”

“Who was it, then?”

“Come, try and guess that yourself.  It wasn’t Goujon; I don’t mind letting you know that.  But it was a person quite within your knowledge of the case.  You’ve mentioned the person’s name more than once.”

Nettings stared blankly.  “I don’t understand you in the least,” he said.  “But, of course, you mean that this mysterious person you speak of as having moved the body committed the murder?”

“No, I don’t.  Nobody could have been more innocent of that.”

“Well,” Nettings concluded with resignation, “I’m afraid one of us is rather thick-headed.  What will you do?”

“Interview the person who took away the body,” Hewitt replied, with a smile.

“But, man alive, why?  Why bother about the person if it isn’t the criminal?”

“Never mind—­never mind; probably the person will be a most valuable witness.”

“Do you mean you think this person—­whoever it is—­saw the crime?”

“I think it very probable indeed.”

“Well, I won’t ask you any more.  I shall get hold of Goujon; that’s simple and direct enough for me.  I prefer to deal with the heart of the case—­the murder itself—­when there’s such clear evidence as I have.”

“I shall look a little into that, too, perhaps,” Hewitt said, “and, if you like, I’ll tell you the first thing I shall do.”

“What’s that?”

“I shall have a good look at a map of the West Indies, and I advise you to do the same.  Good-morning.”

Nettings stared down the corridor after Hewitt, and continued staring for nearly two minutes after he had disappeared.  Then he said to the clerk, who had remained:  “What was he talking about?”

“Don’t know,” replied the clerk.  “Couldn’t make head nor tail of it.”

“I don’t believe there is a head to it,” declared Nettings; “nor a tail either.  He’s kidding us.”

* * * * *

Nettings was better than his word, for within two hours of his conversation with Hewitt, Goujon was captured and safe in a cab bound for Bow Street.  He had been stopped at Newhaven in the morning on his way to Dieppe, and was brought back to London.  But now Nettings met a check.