‘I’ve heard of a cook who fell on his sword when
the fish did not come up to time. Now a raid on the fish? She might fall on her carving knife when they did not arrive, or leap into the flames of the kitchen fire, like Œnone, don’t you know.’
‘Bosh. Vatel was far from the sea, and he had not a fish-monger’s shop round the corner. Be modern.’
Logan rumpled his hair, ‘Can’t I get her to lunch at a restaurant and ply her with the wines of Eastern France? No, she is Temperance personified. Can’t we send her a forged telegram to say that her mother is dying? Servants seem to have such lots of mothers, always inconveniently, or conveniently, moribund.’
‘I won’t have forgery. Great heavens, how obsolete you are! Besides, that would not put her employer in a rage.’
‘Could I go and consult ---?’ he mentioned a specialist. ‘He is a man of ideas.’
‘He is a man of the purest principles—and an uncommonly hard hitter.’
‘It is his purity I want. My own mind is hereditarily lawless. I want something not immoral, yet efficacious. There was that parson, whom you say the woman’s cat nearly devoured. Like Paul with beasts he fought the cat. Now, I wonder if that injured man is not meditating some priestly revenge that would do our turn and get rid of Miss Blowser?’
Merton shook his head impatiently. His own invention was busy, but to no avail. Miss Blowser seemed impregnable. Kutuzoff Hedzoff, the puss,
stalked up to Logan and leaped on his knees. Logan stroked him, Kutuzoff purred and blinked, Logan sought inspiration in his topaz eyes. At last he spoke: ‘Will you leave this affair to me, Merton? I think I have found out a way.’