"But H.M.!" protested Ruth. "If what Cicely told me was true, he was laughing. You'd been telling some perfectly outrageous anecdotes about your ancestor. Including one about reciting limericks to Charles the First"
"Well… now!" said H.M., with a cough and a deprecating wave of his hand. "I didn't really think, y’know, the lofty muse of Curtius Merrivale would ever descend to limericks, even if they'd been invented. It was Masters put the idea in my head by savin’ so the night before."
Then what—?"
‘I was always careful to be very comfortin' and cloth-headed in front of Ricky Fleet He didn't think he'd got to worry about the old man." Then H.M.'s voice changed, sharply. "He wasn't amused then, my wench. He'd been listenin' with all his ears to Drake's end of a do-you-love-me telephone conversation, with that gal there, which didn't amuse him at all.
"When four of you went out there in the car, I heard later, he nearly lost control of himself. He was rigid, nearly ready to burst, hardly keepin' back the tears. That was after Drake had said he meant to elope with Jenny if he had to.”
"I didn't know this at the time; but cor! I was worried. When I gathered that crowd round the race-track booth, and yelled and bellowed the odds, it was only partly to make Sophie popular. I wanted the jostle of a big crowd so I could make sure Ricky Fleet wasn't carryin' a weapon. He wasn't But when I heard Drake was in the maze..”
"You know the rest Puckston and the dewy-eyed innocent were near a microphone (it was darkish, so the feller didn't see it) outside what looked like a solid mirror. It was only the silver paint usually used over plate glass, for what's known to gamblers as a two-way mirror, but in this case on cardboard and curtain.”
"Puckston… so! I should 'a' realized, the night before, he was powder packed into a cartridge. He exploded. Ricky Fleet was a first-rate athlete and as strong-built as you'd find; but against that man he hadn't the chance of a celluloid cat in hell. He collapsed in the pieces of smashed looking-glass. And that's all."
There was long silence, extending almost to discomfort. All of them, except Lady Brayle at the window, looked everywhere except at each other. Finally Ruth, smoothing her skirt over her knees and looking steadily down at it, managed to speak.
"There is one thing." Her face was flushed. "Jenny, dear!"