“Well?”
“Three more kept them, not counting Harbens: one in Knightsbridge, one in New Bond Street, and one a little way down the Brompton Road.”
“Much demand in any of those quarters?”
“Only in the Brompton Road; a literary gentleman has a box regularly every week, and two in the autumn. Pringle, his name is.”
“I know him; so he’s as breathless as his own yarns, is he?” murmured Thrush, to his buttered egg. “But has one of these apothecaries sold a box of d’Auvergnes since Wednesday afternoon?”
“Two have,” said Mullins, “but one was to Mr. Pringle.”
Thrush levelled inquiring spectacles.
“How did you worm that out, Mullins?”
“By changing my tune a bit, sir. I started asking if they knew anybody who could recommend the cigarettes from personal experience, as we were only trying them on hearsay.”
“Very smart of you, Mullins! And one wheezy novelist is the only consumer?”