"Oh, you're going to? Then why bother me?..
"What do you mean, another 'impossible’ situation?…"
The telephone appeared to be speaking at length. "Is that so, now?…
"And what's the name of this bloke who's been murdered?…
"Spell it. Oh! Fane! Arthur Fane."
Philip Courtney jumped to his feet. The pipe he had been filling dropped out of his hands on the table.
He had been through a variety of emotions in the past hour. First there had been the necessity to keep a straight face, and refrain from laughing into H.M.'s empurpled visage. -
Second, it seemed to him that a man must be dead and buriable who could not find pleasure in these memoirs, provided Courtney himself didn't go mad first and provided libel, scandal, and scurrilousness could be reduced to a minimum.
But now—
Again he listened as H.M.'s voice bellowed out.