“I am not being uncomplimentary, am I?” smiled the Greek. “I am merely referring to the ingenuity of your plots. Sometimes your books baffle and annoy me. If I cannot see the solution of your mysteries before the book is half through, it angers me a little. Of course in the majority of cases I know the solution before I have reached the fifth chapter.”
John looked at him in surprise and was somewhat piqued.
“I flatter myself it is impossible to tell how my stories will end until the last chapter,” he said.
Kara nodded.
“That would be so in the case of the average reader, but you forget that I am a student. I follow every little thread of the clue which you leave exposed.”
“You should meet T. X.,” said John, with a laugh, as he rose from his chair to poke the fire.
“T. X.?”
“T. X. Meredith. He is the most ingenious beggar you could meet. We were at Caius together, and he is by way of being a great pal of mine. He is in the Criminal Investigation Department.”
Kara nodded. There was the light of interest in his eyes and he would have pursued the discussion further, but at the moment dinner was announced.
It was not a particularly cheerful meal because Grace did not as usual join in the conversation, and it was left to Kara and to her husband to supply the deficiencies. She was experiencing a curious sense of depression, a premonition of evil which she could not define. Again and again in the course of the dinner she took her mind back to the events of the day to discover the reason for her unease.