"I am listening, my dear," said Horatio, carefully replacing in its Dresden cup the egg which had been doing preliminary duty as a hand warmer, clasped between his devotional palms.
But Harriet Merle with the self-absorption of newspaper monopolists was now reading rapidly half aloud half to herself with tantalizing incoherence—"first-class carriage—inside pocket—five thousand pounds—progressive mothers—thoroughly searched—Bishop of Bunchester."
"That accounts for it," she said at last, laying down the newspaper. "That explains it," repeated Harriet.
"Explains what? What is it all about?" queried her husband, nervously adjusting his eyeglasses, which magnified to an almost goblin intensity the note of interrogation in his pale blue eyes.
Harriet briefly recapitulated the startling news of the stolen purse, to a running accompaniment of "Tut tut!"—"Bless my soul!"—"Well, I never!" from her astonished spouse, who straightway begged to see the newspaper for himself and, with fascinated interest, studied the details of the robbery.
"Clever piece of work," the curate muttered. "Looks like a high-class crook." And his eyes went off into space.
"A crook? Horatio! What do you mean?"
"Nothing, my dear! Nothing!" he assured her with a guilty look, for the truth was this mild-mannered clergyman adored detective mysteries and in his secret chamber had devoured numbers of them.
"Now you see, Horatio, the bishop will be detained in London over Friday, and as Dr. Dibble is laid up with his throat, that is why the Progressive Mothers have asked you to deliver the address at the opening of the bazaar."
"Dear, dear!" sighed Horatio, ignoring the all-important matter of the address. "Such a large sum, such an incredible sum! Fancy losing anything so huge as five thousand pounds!" he smiled at the thought. "It's like—it's like the musician who lost a bass drum in a hansom cab. Now if it were five shillings, or even five pounds, I could really sympathize; and, speaking of sympathy, Harriet, I think I will go to the rectory this morning and see if there is anything I can do for poor Dr. Dibble."