The financier, Mr. Solomon Gluckstein, original and senior representative of John Brown & Co., Jermyn Street, was particularly fond of pink, and extremely susceptible to deshabille. Whiskey-and-soda, personally prepared for him in sufficient strength by his charming debtor, increased the fondness and the susceptibility.
"Ma tear lady," said Mr. Gluckstein, with desperate firmness, "I have come on an unplethant errand."
Mrs. Astley-Rolfe pouted petulantly.
"Am I to have no peace?" she complained, from an alluring attitude on a couch. "Isn't it enough to have gone through the last two days? Look at me. I am a nervous wreck."
"Then all women wouldth with to be nervouth wrecks," said Mr. Gluckstein gallantly.
"I believe that odious detective actually imagined at the beginning that I might have murdered the poor girl."
"Nonthenth," the financier assured her.
"I have scarcely had any sleep," she went on reproachfully. "It is a wonder I am not thoroughly ill. And now you—from whom I should have expected consideration—come here with a face like a rock, and announce your intention to be unpleasant. If I didn't know you so well, I might have believed you."
Mr. Gluckstein glanced towards the door, and drew his chair closer to her.
"Let us understand each other," he said deliberately. "At the present time you owe me a large thum of money."