Anthony Cade—Superintendent Battle

Anthony Cade and Superintendent Battle form an uneasy investigative partnership built on complementary skills, incomplete disclosures, and mutual scrutiny. Battle values Cade’s unusual access to events but keeps him under suspicion; Cade assists the investigation while concealing facts that could implicate him. Their relationship ultimately rests not on full candor from the beginning, but on Battle’s patience, Cade’s eventual cooperation, and the respect each expresses after Cade’s identity and motives are revealed.

Recruitment into the Investigation

Battle explicitly invites Cade to work with him, describing the arrangement as a partnership between a professional investigator with experience and an amateur with intimacy to the people and circumstances involved. Cade, who admits that he has long wanted to try solving a murder mystery, accepts the role. His enthusiasm does not mean he possesses a settled theory: he says that he has plenty of ideas, but that most of them are questions.

The offer recognizes Cade’s value without making him Battle’s equal in authority. Later, when Cade asks whether he is still the amateur assistant, Battle confirms that he is. Cade casts their arrangement in the familiar detective-fiction pattern of Watson to Battle’s Sherlock, while Battle continues to direct the official inquiry. The label is light-hearted, but the working division is real: Cade contributes private knowledge and observations, while Battle controls the investigation and decides how to use them.

Suspicion and Withheld Information

The partnership develops under pressure because Cade is entangled in more than the case Battle is investigating. Within twenty-four hours, he has become involved in two separate crimes. He has secretly disposed of a body, frustrating the pursuit of justice, and then arrived at the scene of another crime as it was being committed. Recognizing how dangerous his position is, he decides to tell the truth with one small alteration and one major omission. His cooperation therefore begins on deliberately incomplete terms.

Battle notices the gap between Cade’s composed manner and the facts surrounding him. He later acknowledges that he had a hunch connecting Cade to the Staines affair, although he lacked definite evidence. He had watched Cade’s behavior and set small traps, observing that Cade never overplayed his apparent carelessness. Battle explains his method as keeping a suspect in motion until the strain makes him falter. Cade, who has felt the pressure of those tests, recognizes that Battle has been quietly scrutinizing him from their first meeting.

Cade is also anxious about the murder inquiry because the evidence could point toward him. He knows that, as the next heir to the throne, he might be thought to have the strongest motive for Michael Obolovitch’s death. He says he has been afraid of Battle, believing the detective suspected him but lacked a motive. Battle answers that he never believed Cade had committed the killing; he sensed instead that Cade feared something, and that unexplained fear puzzled him. The exchange distinguishes Battle’s intuition from a proven accusation: he reads Cade’s evasions as significant without treating them as evidence of murder.

Cooperation and the Release of Information

At a later stage, Battle presses Cade to explain why he has decided to disclose his knowledge. Cade says that Battle’s abilities have earned his respect and that withholding information would needlessly hamper the investigation. He points to the current situation as evidence that Battle arrives at the crucial moment, and acknowledges that his own actions have made a mess of things. His disclosure is also prompted by a change in the position of Virginia Revel: once the letters are shown to have no connection to her, Cade no longer believes that protecting her requires his silence. He recognizes that her claim to have paid the blackmailer merely on a whim might be difficult for a jury to credit.

The decision to cooperate does not erase the earlier mistrust. Battle’s questions have kept Cade under observation, while Cade has tried to avoid the traps he senses around him. Yet Cade’s account of his reasons makes the relationship more explicit: he gives Battle the information because he believes the detective deserves access to all the facts. Battle continues to treat him as an amateur assistant rather than surrendering control of the investigation, but their arrangement now depends on a more deliberate exchange of knowledge.

The partnership also broadens beyond the pair. Battle argues that the secrecy surrounding the political affair cannot continue indefinitely, and that Bill Eversleigh may be told what he needs to know. Cade, he says, has already been drawn into the matter and has a right to understand its context. Battle’s decision shows a practical willingness to share information with those involved, although his pause before explaining further indicates that disclosure still has limits. Cade’s position changes from an outsider brought into the case by circumstance to a participant whom Battle considers entitled to relevant facts.

Final Disclosures and Mutual Respect

The relationship reaches its clearest expression after Cade reveals the truth about his identity. Cade explains that his position in the house had been precarious because he could be seen as having a dynastic motive for Michael Obolovitch’s death. He admits that he had feared Battle throughout the investigation. Battle replies that earlier knowledge of Cade’s real identity might have led him to yield to the apparent evidence and arrest him. His confidence that Cade was not the murderer had rested on judgment, not on knowing the concealed royal connection.

Cade responds with gratitude that he managed to keep one guilty secret from Battle, while acknowledging that the detective uncovered everything else. He says that he will always think of Scotland Yard with respect and calls Battle exceptionally good at his work. The line is significant because it comes from a man who has spent much of the inquiry evading scrutiny: Cade does not merely praise Battle’s deductions but recognizes the discipline with which he pursued a suspect without confusing suspicion with certainty.

After the others leave, Cade notices that Battle wants to ask him something and invites the question. Battle asks why he abandoned his own name. Cade explains that he had done so from what he regarded as the purest motives: his mother was English, he had been educated in England, and he felt more interested in England than in Herzoslovakia. As a young man he had rejected kings and princes and believed in democratic ideals and the equality of all people. His response gives Battle an account of the personal history behind the false identity, rather than another investigative clue.

Cade’s political beliefs have since become more complicated. Travel has convinced him that equality does not describe the world as it is, and he now thinks that decent conduct may sometimes have to be imposed by force rather than secured through appeals to people’s better nature. He nevertheless says that he still believes in democracy and human brotherhood, though he expects the latter to take a very long time. Battle listens with interest and tells Cade that he believes he will make a fine king. Their exchange closes the investigative relationship with a reversal: the detective who had monitored a potentially dangerous suspect now acknowledges the concealed heir’s capacity to rule, while Cade’s sigh suggests that the recognition brings little uncomplicated happiness.