He looked at me sharply. “Were you the honest medium?” he said.
“I was.”
“You impressed Dr. Morning and his wife very favourably, especially his wife.” I certainly had not thought so at the time. “He couldn’t make out how you got mixed up with that crew. You will have to tell me that, for I can’t make it out either, and I hate puzzles.”
I laughed. “Oh, I’ll tell you anything you like about that,” I said.
The library of his house was on the ground floor. Every available inch of wall space was covered with book-shelves, and when I sat down I noticed that the books near me dealt principally with Satanism. He remained standing, opened the pocket-book, and showed me that it contained twenty bank-notes of fifty pounds each.
“These,” he said, “are of comparatively little importance. These pages of memoranda are worth more. At any rate there are people in the City who would have given you a good deal more for them. If you had read them you would have had very little difficulty in finding your market. Don’t you think you had better have slipped the book into your pocket and said nothing?”
I hated this kind of thing. “No,” I said bluntly. “Why say these things?”
He looked at me long and seriously. “You are,” he said, “in many respects exactly like Charles. Charles,” he added, “is my son. He is a singularly quixotic young man, and at present he’s in the deuce of a mess.”
What on earth was I to say to that? As I did not know, I said nothing.
“May I ask,” he said, “if you have any occupation or profession?”