Next morning I got a note from Roupert, saying that Reid consented, and asking me to come in to his house punctually at half-past two, if I had decided to be with him. When I arrived I found Roupert and Frank Hampden sitting over their coffee in the study. Hampden had just drunk his.
“Isn’t there a home for cats somewhere in Battersea?” he was asking. “I’ll go and find a new one for you, as yours appears to have vanished entirely.”
He yawned.
“It’s a feeble habit to go to sleep after lunch,” he said, “but I really think I shall have a nap. I’ve got an astonishing inclination that way. Give me half an hour, will you, and then we’ll go down to the cats’ home, and get a large fat cat.”
I guessed that Roupert had already given his cousin the dose of hyocampine, but just as the latter was pulling a chair round so that he need not face the light, he spoke.
“Make a proper job of it, Frank,” he said, “and lie on the sofa. One always wakes feeling cramped if one goes to sleep in a chair.”
Hampden’s eyelids were already drooping, but he shuffled heavily across to the sofa.
“All right,” he mumbled, “sorry for being so rude, Mr.—Mr. Archdale, but I must have just forty—I wonder why forty——”
And immediately he went to sleep.
Roupert waited a moment, but Hampden did not stir again. Then he went out, and returned with Reid, who had been waiting in his bedroom. All explanations had already been made, and in silence we darkened the room by drawing the thick curtains across the window. Only a little light came in from their edges, but, as last night, the firelight flickered on the walls. Then Roupert locked the door, and we took our places round the table.