‘Then you are sailing near the wind?’
‘Really I don’t think so: not really what you call near.’
‘I am sorry for that unlucky Mrs. Gisborne,’ said Merton, musingly. ‘And with two such tempers as
the cook’s and Mr. Fulton’s the match could not be a happy one. Well, Logan, I suppose you won’t tell me what your game is?’
‘Better not, I think, but, I assure you, honour is safe. I am certain that nobody can say anything. I rather expect to earn public gratitude, on the whole. You can’t appear in any way, nor the rest of us. By-the-bye do you remember the address of the parson whose dog was hurt?’
‘I think I kept a cutting of the police case; it was amusing,’ said Merton, looking through a kind of album, and finding presently the record of the incident.
‘It may come in handy, or it may not,’ said Logan. He then went off, and had Merton followed him he might not have been reassured. For Logan first walked to a chemist’s shop, where he purchased a quantity of a certain drug. Next he went to the fencing rooms which he frequented, took his fencing mask and glove, borrowed a fencing glove from a left-handed swordsman whom he knew, and drove to his rooms with this odd assortment of articles. Having deposited them, he paid a call at the dwelling of a fair member of the Disentanglers, Miss Frere, the lady instructress in the culinary art, at the City and Suburban College of Cookery, whereof, as we have heard, Mr. Fulton, the eminent drysalter, was a patron and visitor. Logan unfolded the case and his plan of campaign to Miss Frere, who listened with intelligent sympathy.
‘Do you know the man by sight?’ he asked.
‘Oh yes, and he knows me perfectly well. Last
year he distributed the prizes at the City and Suburban School of Cookery, and paid me the most extraordinary compliments.’