"But dammit, my dear chap!" expostulated the major. "After all, I mean to say, dammit!"
"What's wrong, son?"
"Well, if you feel you must haunt chemists' shops, why don't you buy something useful? Shaving soap? Razor blades? Tooth paste? To date," said the major, counting, "you've bought fourteen bottles of cough mixture, twelve bottles of soothing syrup, nine bottles of horse liniment, eight bottles of—"
"You let me alone, son. I know what I'm doing.".
And Courtney had to assume he did.
Courtney did not see Ann between Thursday and Sunday. She had gone back to her ordinary work at Gloucester, and his evenings were too occupied with the dictation to see her then.
On Sunday — a heavy, muggy day which threatened rain — he was for once depressed to see that H.M. had wound himself up for a garrulous spell of reminiscing. - And he welcomed the interruption when Chief Inspector Masters arrived soon after lunch,
Masters found H.M. in the library, in carpet-slippers, with his feet up on the desk, immersed in a curious anecdote about the Davenport brothers and their use of a lazy-tongs in the middle-'eighties. He kept his eyes shut until he had finished this. Then he looked very hard at Masters, and abandoned all pretense of dictating by saying:
"Yes? Any news?" Masters's face was very grim.! "Plenty," the chief inspector assured him. "Mrs. Fane is much better, and able to take notice. And it's just as well she is. For I'm bound to admit there does seem to be something in that Polly Allen business." "Aha!"
Masters, though his heightened color showed, what he really thought of it, was cautious.