He had spent twenty-five years in the Force - excepting, of course, for four years in Flanders - and those years were beginning to show in the grey of his grizzled hair and the lines in the corners of his eyes. Apart from those two signs he might have been twenty-eight, not forty-eight. His back was as straight as a rod, his stomach flat, his biceps passably hard, even when relaxed, and his eyes, flinty grey beneath almost white brows, were as keen and shrewd as ever. His lips smiled less often, perhaps, but his eyes laughed more. At times he was called the Philosopher, because he appeared to let nothing worry him. At other times he was called the Posh William, because he dressed fastidiously, and wore a buttonhole on every possible occasion. At other times still he was called the Mug, because every Commissioner selected him for the most difficult, tiring, intricate, and unlikely problems. The imagination of his fellow-officers - and subordinates - at Scotland Yard was not, then, as fertile nor as subtle as it might have been.
