“Oh, just the ordinary evening dress of a valet. There is not much room for variety in that.”
“You noticed, in fact, nothing special by which Parkinson could be identified?”
“Well, he wore an unusually broad gold ring on the little finger of the left hand.”
“But that is removable. And yet Parkinson has an ineradicable mole—a small one, I admit—on his chin. And you a human sleuth-hound. Oh, Louis!”
“At all events,” retorted Carlyle, writhing a little under this good-humoured satire, although it was easy enough to see in it Carrados’s affectionate intention—“at all events, I dare say I can give as good a description of Parkinson as he can give of me.”
“That is what we are going to test. Ring the bell again.”
“Seriously?”
“Quite. I am trying my eyes against yours. If I can’t give you fifty out of a hundred I’ll renounce my private detectorial ambition for ever.”
“It isn’t quite the same,” objected Carlyle, but he rang the bell.
“Come in and close the door, Parkinson,” said Carrados when the man appeared. “Don’t look at Mr Carlyle again—in fact, you had better stand with your back towards him, he won’t mind. Now describe to me his appearance as you observed it.”