“I quite understand, my lord.”
“Nothing whatever to do with my excursion to-night, you understand.”
“Certainly not, my lord.”
“And now you might bring me Christie’s catalogue. I shall be attending a sale there and lunching at the club.”
And, detaching his mind from crime, Lord Peter bent his intellectual and financial powers to outbidding and breaking a ring of dealers, an exercise very congenial to his mischievous spirit.
Lord Peter duly fulfilled the conditions imposed upon him, and arrived on foot at the block of flats in South Audley Street. Mrs. Forrest, as before, opened the door to him herself. It was surprising, he considered, that, situated as she was, she appeared to have neither maid nor companion. But then, he supposed, a chaperon, however disarming of suspicion in the eyes of the world, might prove venal. On the whole, Mrs. Forrest’s principle was a sound one: no accomplices. Many transgressors, he reflected, had
“died because they never knew
These simple little rules and few.”
Mrs. Forrest apologised prettily for the inconvenience to which she was putting Mr. Templeton.
“But I never know when I am not spied upon,” she said. “It is sheer spite, you know. Considering how my husband has behaved to me, I think it is monstrous—don’t you?”