"Y'see, Masters, you've got to find two units, sort of, like the wood here and the skeleton in the clock with old Dr. Pierre Laurier rocking back and forth in front of it But, burn me, still they don't fit into a pattern until you connect 'em together with a real clue…"
Here H.M. roused himself out of his reverie.
"I say, Masters. Am I making myself clear?"
"Curiously enough," retorted Masters, with towering and stiff-jawed dignity, "you are not" Then slow suspicion dawned and grew clear in his expression. "Sir Henry, are you trying to do me in the eye again?"
"Oh, my son! No! I wouldn't do that!"
"Oh, no,", said Masters in a hollow voice. "Oh, no. No. You never have, have you? Oh, no. In a pig's ear you haven't!"
H.M. looked at him steadily.
"I'm not doin' it this time son. Honest It's too serious."
This almost if not quite reassured his companion, who again opened the notebook.
"And I get all the details," he insisted, "straightaway?"