“How de do,” said Sir Bruton, whose pop-eyed stare appeared to indicate approval. “Kind of you to let me come.”
He was feeling for his cigar-case, but Mr. Tuke forestalled him.
“Not one of those things. Have a cigar.”
Mr. Mainward had fought his way to them. He carefully lowered his tray and bowed with his customary impressement to Mrs. Tuke. Then he saw Sir Bruton, and behind his spectacles, with their immense side-pieces, his eyes looked startled.
“What have you got? ” Vivien Ardmore was asking, eyeing the contents of the tray. “I’m sorry there’s no Pernod,” she said to Yvette. Her slightly worried glance went to Mr. Tuke. “An extraordinary thing’s happened. I’ve been burgled.”
“Nothing valuable taken, I hope?”
“Only the Pernod and half a lemon.”
“A burglar of discrimination,” Harvey said lightly.
Mr. Mainward handed drinks. Vivien still looked worried.
“That’s all that’s gone, so far as I can see. Oh, and a tumbler. And something was spilt in here—the carpet’s been scrubbed. I only found it out when I got back after lunch. It must have happened this morning, while I was at the office, because the carpet was still wet. It’s damp now.”
She pointed across the room, where little of the carpet was to be seen for feet and legs.
“Has anybody besides yourself got a key?” Harvey asked.
“The woman who cleans the place for me. But she only comes three days a week, and never on Saturdays. And she’s a Rechabite or something. She disapproves of what I expect she calls my orgies. But we get on very well for all that, and I’ve had her three years. And if she’s suddenly developed a passion for Pernod, she could have taken it at any time in the last month.”
“Has anything of this kind ever happened before?”
A wrinkle of perplexity contracted Miss Ardmore’s brow.
“Well, I have had a suspicion once or twice lately that somebody’s been through my things. Letters, and so on.
I’m not very tidy, so I can’t swear to it, but letters I thought were in one part of my bureau I’ve found in another. And things in the drawers weren’t as I remembered leaving them. Annie, my char, never touches the inside of the bureau. Of course, she could ransack it if she wanted to—it’s never locked—but why should she start now? It’s only during the last few months that I’ve noticed anything—or thought so.” Miss Ardmore shrugged. “Well, I needn’t bother you with all this. I only mentioned it because of the Pernod—and the lemon, which is almost as rare.”
“Is there any other way into this place?” Harvey inquired. “No. The back windows look into the yards of the houses in Cranborne Gardens. You’d want a ladder to get to them.” Sir Bruton, over a gin and lime, fixed Miss Ardmore with a shrewd if protuberant eye.
“Bins,” he said suddenly. “Who was talking about bins?”
“No one,” said Mr. Tuke. “What sort of bins? You were talking of the domestic variety last night, with reference to waistcoats.”
“Got a bin in your kitchen?” Sir Bruton demanded of Miss Ardmore.
“Yes, I have.”
“Looked in it since you came home to-day?”
“I haven’t looked in it. I shot some rubbish in.”
“Have a squint now, there’s a good gal. I’ll come along.”
“The kitchen’s frightfully untidy,” Vivien Ardmore said. “I’ve just left everything till I wash up later.”
“I’ll stay and help,” said Sir Bruton handsomely. “Like old times, when I hadn’t a brief to my name, and only three shirts and half a one.”
“Why half a one?” Mrs. Tuke wanted to know.
The Director chuckled. “I’d thrown the thing away, and used the tails for dusters or something. Not that I did much dusting. Then I wanted a shirt. It looked all right. Sleeves and collar and two front buttons left. Sort of dicky. Wore it for months like that. Come on, Miss Ardmore. Let’s peep into this bin of yours.”
With a shrug and a lift of her left eyebrow, Vivien gave Mr. Tuke a comical look and led the way out of the room, Sir Bruton lumbering after her. Mr. Tuke began to move his head from side to side in an endeavour to see the damp stain on the carpet. He was thus found by Rockley Payne, who having greeted Mrs. Tuke caught his eye and held up a sheet of paper.
“I’ve got what you wanted,” said the editor of The Ludgate, sotto voce. “It’s Southey. ‘The Scholar.’ I ought to have known. It’s in most anthologies.”
Harvey took the paper, and standing a little to one side with Mr. Payne, studied a typewritten set of verses. There were four stanzas; and the first two were enough to make Harvey frown so diabolically that the youthful editor said afterwards he felt like crossing his fingers.
My days among the dead are passed;
Around me I behold,
Where’er these casual eyes are cast,
The mighty minds of old:
My never-failing friends are they,
With whom I converse day by day.
With them I take delight in weal
And seek relief in woe;
And while I understand and feel
How much to them I owe,
My cheeks have often been bedewed
With tears of thoughtful gratitude. . . .
Under Mr. Payne’s curious gaze his companion continued to frown blackly as he read the stanzas a second time. Then the frown lifted, and his lips curled in a sardonic smile.
“You see before you, Mr. Payne, the biggest ass in the legal profession.”
“Oh, no, no,” said Rockley Payne in a shocked murmur. “But it helps, does it?”
“It does indeed. It’s a revelation. I stand blasted with excess of light—which isn’t Southey, anyway. I am enormously indebted to you. With tears of thoughtful gratitude,” said Mr. Tuke, still staring in a fascinated way at the paper in his hand, “I must leave it at that for the moment. This requires some meditation. I’ll tell you all I can later on.”
“Right you are,” said Mr. Payne in his accommodating way. “I’m glad to have been useful. Have you heard about the
