Ravensdene Court by J.S. Fletcher

I am not sure which, or how many, of us sitting at that table had ever come into personal contact with a detective -- I myself had never met one in my life! -- but I am sure that Mr. Raven's announcement that there was a real live one close at hand immediately excited much curiosity. Miss Raven, in the adjoining room, the door of which was open, caught her uncle's last words, and came in, expectantly -- I think she, like most of us, wondered what sort of being we were about to see. And possibly there was a shade of disappointment on her face when the police-inspector walked in followed, not by the secret, subtle, sleuth-hound-like person she had perhaps expected, but by a little, rotund, rather merry-faced man who looked more like a prosperous cheesemonger or successful draper than an emissary of justice: he was just the sort of person you would naturally expect to see with an apron round his comfortable waist-line or a pencil stuck in his ear and who was given to rubbing his fat, white hands -- he rubbed them now and smiled, wholesale, as his companion led him forward.

"Sorry to disturb you, Mr. Raven," said the inspector with an apologetic bow, "but we are anxious to have a little talk with you and Mr. Middlebrook. This is Mr. Scarterfield -- from the police at Devonport. Mr. Scarterfield has been in charge of the investigations about the affair -- Noah Quick, you know -- down there, and he has come here to make some further inquiries."