"I suppose you have your theory—as usual?"
"It is not a theory," the creature replied, with that fatuous smile of his which always irritated me; "it is a certainty."
Then, as he became silent, absorbed in the contemplation of a wonderfully complicated knot in his beloved bit of string, I said with gracious condescension:
"You may talk about it, if you like."
He did like, fortunately for me, because, frankly, I could not see daylight in that maze of intrigue, adventure and possibly crime, which was described by the Press as "The Mystery of the White Carnation."
"The events were interesting from the outset," he began after a while, whilst I settled down to listen, "and so were various actors in the society drama. Chief amongst these was, of course, Captain Shillington, an Australian ex-officer, commonly reputed to be a millionaire, who, with his mother and sister, rented Mexfield House in Somerset Street, Mayfair, the summer before last. It appears that Lord Mexfield's younger son, the Honorable Henry Buckley, who was an incorrigible rake and whom his father had sent on a tour round the world in order to keep him temporarily out of mischief, not to say out of gaol, had met a married brother of Captain Shillington's out in the Antipodes, they had been very kind to him, and so on, with the result that when came the following London season the family turned up in England, and, after spending a couple of days at the Savoy, they moved into the Mexfields' house in Somerset Street.
"Lord and Lady Mexfield were abroad that year, and Henry Buckley and his sister Angela were living with an aunt who had a small house somewhere in Mayfair.
"Although the Shillingtons were reputed to be very wealthy, they appeared to be very quiet, simple folk, and it certainly seemed rather strange that they should have gone to the expense of a house in town, when obviously they had no social ambitions and did not mean to entertain. As a matter of fact, as far as Mrs. Shillington and her daughter were concerned, nobody could have lived a quieter, more retiring life than they did. Mrs. Shillington was an invalid and hardly ever went outside her front door, and the girl Marion seemed to be suffering from a perpetual cold in the head. They seemed to be in a chronic state of servant trouble. Mrs. Shillington was dreadfully irritable, and one set of servants after another were engaged only to leave without notice after a few days. The one faithful servant who remained was a snuffy old man who came to them about a month after they moved into Mexfield House. He and a charwoman did all the work of cooking and valeting and so on. Presumably the old man could not have got a situation elsewhere as his appearance was very unprepossessing, and therefore he was willing to put up with what the servants' registry offices would term 'a very uncomfortable situation.'
"Captain Shillington, the hero of the tragic adventure, on the other hand, went about quite a good deal. He was certainly voted to be rather strait-laced, not to say priggish, but he was very good-looking and a fine dancer. Henry Buckley introduced him to some of his smart friends and Lady Angela constituted him her dancing partner. The partnership soon developed into warmer friendship and presently it was given out that Lady Angela Buckley, only daughter of the Earl and Countess of Mexfield, was engaged to Captain Denver Shillington, the Australian millionaire. Lady Angela confided to her friends that her fiancé was the owner of immense estates in Western Australia, on a portion of which rich deposits of gold had lately been discovered. He certainly had plenty of money to spend, and on one occasion he actually paid Henry Buckley's gambling debts to the tune of two or three hundred pounds.
"On the whole, society pronounced the match a suitable one. Lady Angela Buckley was no longer in her first youth, whilst her brother, to whom she was really devoted, would be all the better for a somewhat puritanical, strait-laced and, above all, wealthy brother-in-law."