He went straight to his room, however, without wasting conjecture or surmise over this, undressed and blew out his candle. Outside, a great moon was swung high in heaven, no leaf trembled on the trees, but through the summer night the songs of many nightingales bubbled liquidly.
A few nights afterward he and Geoffrey were sitting alone in the house in Cavendish Square. Harry had been full of figures, wondering what was the least sum on which this London house could be made decently habitable. One room wanted a fresh paper, distemper was essential to another, most required fresh carpets, and stamped leather was imperatively indicated for the hall. Geoffrey listened with quiet amusement, for Harry was talking with such pellucid transparency that it was difficult not to smile. Then the question of electric light at Vail was touched upon, and suddenly he stopped, rose, and beat the ashes of his pipe out into the grate.
"By the way, Geoff," he said, "supposing you looked out the name of a man whom you did not know, and had only once heard of, in a 'Where is it?' belonging to a friend, and found the name in inverted commas, what inference, if any, would you draw? No, it is not a riddle; purely a matter of curiosity."
Geoffrey yawned.
"Even Sherlock Holmes would not infer there," he said; "and even his friend Watson could not fail in such a perfectly certain conclusion."
"What conclusion?"
"Wait a moment; let us be an obtuse detective. Is the person from whom you have heard the name the same as the person to whom the 'Where is it?' belongs? Lord, I give points to Watson!"
"It happens that it is so. Does that influence your conclusion?"