The Herapath Property by J.S. Fletcher

When Triffitt had fairly separated from the detective and had come to reckon up the events of that morning he became definitely conscious of one indisputable fact. The police knew more than he did. The police were in possession of information which had not come his way. The police were preparing some big _coup_. Therefore -- the police would get all the glory.

This was not what Triffitt had desired. He had wanted to find things out for himself, to make a grand discovery, to be able to go to Markledew and prove his case. Markledew could then have done what he pleased; it had always been in Triffitt's mind that Markledew would in all probability present the result of his reporter's labours to the people at Scotland Yard. But Markledew had become somewhat previous -- he had insisted that Triffitt should talk to the Scotland Yard folk at this early -- in Triffitt's view, much too early -- stage of the proceedings. And Triffitt had felt all the time he was talking that he was only telling the high official and the apathetic Davidge something that they already knew. He had told them about his memories of Bentham and the Scottish murder trial -- something convinced him that they were already well acquainted with that story. He had narrated the incident of the taxi-cab driver: he was sure that they were quite well aware that the man who had been driven from Orchard Street to St. Mary Abbot church that morning after the murder was Barthorpe Herapath. Their cold eyes and polite, yet almost chillingly indifferent manner had convinced Triffitt that they were just listening to something with which they were absolutely familiar. Never a gleam of interest had betrayed itself in their stolid official faces until he had referred to the fact that he himself was living in a flat next door to Burchill's. Then, indeed, the detective had roused himself almost to eagerness, and now he was coming to see him, Triffitt, quietly and unobtrusively. Why?