“I beg your pardon,” he said. “Please don’t think me impertinent, but I am really curious to know whether that young woman was honest or not. She refused to read my hand or look into the crystal for me, simply because I was a man. Did she treat you in just the same way?”
The detective smiled.
“Yes!” he said. “She was very much on her guard indeed. Declined to have anything to do with me.”
“Well,” said Saton, “I only went in for a joke. I’ll try one of the others. There’s a wonderful lady in Oxford Street somewhere, they tell me, with the biggest black eyes in London. Good day, sir!”
Saton walked off, and entered a neighboring tea-shop. From there he telephoned to Violet, who a few minutes later appeared.
“Sit down and have some tea,” he said. “I want to talk to you.”
“It’s almost time, isn’t it?” she asked, reproachfully.
“Never mind about that just now,” he said. “You can guess a little how things are. Those questions in the House upset the Home Secretary, and I am quite convinced that they have made up their minds at Scotland Yard to go for us. You are sure that you have been careful?”
“Absolutely,” she answered. “I have not once, to man or woman, pretended to tell their fortune. I tell them that the whole thing is a joke; that I will look into the crystal for them if they wish it, or read their hands, but I do not profess to tell their fortunes. What I see I will tell them. It may interest them or it may not. If it does, I ask them to give me something as a present. Of course, I see that they always do that. But you are quite right, Bertrand. Every one of our shows is being watched. Besides that fellow this afternoon I had two detectives yesterday, and a woman whom I am doubtful about, who keeps on coming.”
“Three weeks longer,” Saton remarked, half to himself. “Perhaps it isn’t worth while. Perhaps it would be better to close up now.”