"Lady? Elope? — What on earth do you mean? My dear sir, you must be mad!" She edged backwards to a chair, and sat down.
"The ancient and melodious refrain to which," said Dr. Fell musingly, "to which I have got accustomed after all these years. Tell, you must be mad.' It is Chief Inspector Hadley’s favorite ditty. Well, I don't mind. Believe me, ma'am, the subject is distasteful. I mention it only because I believe it has rather a terrible bearing on the murder."
"I'm sure I don't know what you mean."
"H'm. Perhaps I had better start from the beginning. Do you mind if I smoke?"
She sniffed the air. "It does not seem to have been necessary for you to get permission, doctor. Do not let my presence interfere with you, please… What were you saying?"
Dr. Fell sat back with a grunt of satisfaction, and clipped the end of a cigar. "Thank you. Beer and tobacco, ma'am, are the twin warming pans of my declining years. Both have curious histories, to the first I have devoted an entire chapter of my work, The Drinking Customs of England from the Earliest Days. Do you know, for example, the first time that what is humorously called a prohibition law was ever in effect in history? Heh-heh. It affords me amusement to think that our friends the Americans believed they had something new. The first prohibition law was enacted in Egypt by the Pharaoh User, maat.-ra, or Rameses the Great, about the year 4000 B.C. It was an edict designed to prevent his subjects from getting sozzled on a species of barley beer and manufacturing whoopee in the streets of Thebes. Prohibitionists asserted that the next generation would never know the taste of the villainous stuff. Ha, hum, alas. The law failed, and was revoked. Tobacco, now…"
He struck a match, argumentatively. Tobacco, now — h'rrm; puff— puff— aaah! Tobacco, as I was saying, has a history which has been much distorted. Christopher Columbus saw American- natives smoking cigars as early as 1492. It is a curious and fantastic picture, almost as though they had been described as wearing top hats and gold watch chains. Jean Nicot…"
"Will you get on with what you were saying?" she interrupted, clenching her hands. "Eh? Oh, if you like…" He seemed to reflect. "I am given to understand, Mrs. Standish, that Mr. Depping was much addicted to gallantries."
" 'Gallantries' is precisely the word. He was gallant, in an age where men seem to think it most unnecessary."
"I see. And the ladies liked it?"