“Teasing me!” sniffed Blodgett with an unpleasant leer at Hawkins.
“Teasing that antiquity!” Hawkins growled in my ear. “Say, isn't that enough to——”
“Don't whisper, Herbert—it isn't polite,” continued Mrs. Hawkins, the playfulness of her manner somewhat belied by the glitter in her eye. “Let us all into the secret.”
“Oh, there's no secret,” said the inventor shortly.
“No dance, either,” pouted the girl from Jersey, who was an intimate of the family.
It was the signal for the light fantastic business to begin. Hawkins is notoriously out of sympathy with dancing. He took my arm and guided me stealthily from the drawing-room.
“Phew!” remarked the inventor when we had settled ourselves up-stairs with a couple of cigars. “Say, Griggs, do you still wonder at crime?”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning dear papa Blodgett,” snapped Hawkins. “Honestly, do you believe it would be really wicked to lure that old human pussy-cat down cellar and sort of lose him through the furnace-door?”
“Don't talk nonsense, Hawkins,” I laughed.