Friday passed, and Saturday. It was Sunday afternoon before Chief Inspector Masters, who had been very busy in the meantime, again called for a conference with Sir Henry Merrivale.
Philip Courtney had also been busy.
He had now taken down about ninety thousand words of the memoirs. Of these, after matter libelous, scandalous, or in bad taste had been removed, he estimated that roughly a fifth would be publishable. He was well satisfied. This would keep the book in proportion; and he was in no hurry to get it done.
Some anecdotes it cut him to the heart to strike out. One was a vivid and realistic account of H.M.'s first serious love-affair, at the age of sixteen. But as the lady concerned was now the wife of a Cabinet Minister, noted throughout England for her pious works, he judged it best omitted.
The other was a particularly fiendish trick — H.M.'s technique seemed to improve with his advancing years — devised for the discomfiture of Uncle George. But, since it concerned a certain use to which not even Satan himself would think to put a lavatory, Courtney regretfully omitted it as well.
Dictation, too, was difficult. They were not interrupted by the inquest, which was held on Saturday and adjourned at the request of the police after Arthur Fane's body had been formally identified by Hubert.
But they were interrupted by H.M.'s sudden passion for visiting chemists' shops.
Courtney would not have believed there were so many chemists in the world, let alone Cheltenham. He knew, of course, that something was up. If H.M. had gone about showing photographs for identification, or asking pertinent questions about people, he could have understood it. But H.M. did none of these things.
He would go into the shop, ask for a prescription of one sort or another to be made up, and loiter for a ten minutes' chat about nothing while the chemist filled it. No name was mentioned, no question asked.
As a result, H.M.'s purchases were accumulating. Their number and variety would have been regarded with envy by the man in Uncle George's arithmetic-sums. They moved even Major Adams, H.M.'s host, to remonstrance.