The inspector placed a large foot in the aperture. “You needn’t put on any of those frills with me,” he said with the utmost cheerfulness. “You know whether the gentleman I want to see is at home or not.” He paused and looked the other in the eye. “Is he?” he shot out with startling abruptness.
Roger watched the dolphin’s reaction to this mode of attack with some interest. His gills opened and closed rapidly, and a look of distinct alarm appeared in his pale sandy eyes. Roger had never seen an alarmed butler before, and he certainly never expected to see one again.
“He—he was in to dinner, sir,” gasped the dolphin, almost before he knew what he was doing.
“Ha!” observed the inspector, evidently satisfied. “Then you cut along, my man, and tell him that Inspector Moresby of Scotland Yard would like a word or two with him. And you needn’t shout it out for all the rest of the world to hear, understand?” It appeared that the dolphin understood. “Very well. Now show us somewhere where we can wait.”
The chastened dolphin led them into a small room on the left of the big hall, the gun-room. As the door closed behind him, Roger seized the inspector’s hand and wrung it reverently. “Now I see how you can arrest seventeen armed criminals in the most dangerous dive in Limehouse with nothing but a walking-stick and a safety-pin,” he said in awe-struck tones. “ ‘My man!’ And yet the heavens remain intact!”
“I never stand nonsense from butlers,” remarked the inspector modestly.
Roger shielded his eyes and groaned.
Colin Woodthorpe, who made his appearance a couple of minutes later, proved to be a pleasant-looking young man of some five- or six-and-twenty, with fair hair and a sanguine complexion, big and sturdy; he was wearing a dinner-jacket, but Roger instinctively saw him in gaiters and riding-breeches. He was perfectly self-possessed.
“Inspector Moresby?” he asked with a little smile, picking out Roger’s companion without hesitation.
“That’s me, sir,” assented the inspector in his usual genial tones. “Sorry to bother you, but duty’s duty, as you know. I hope that butler of yours didn’t make too much pother. I told him not to. Scotland Yard has a nasty sound in the ears of the old people, I know.”