"No. I write on a higher level."
"You won't write on a more paying level," replied Hurd, coolly. "I know a newspaper which will give you—if I recommend you, mind—one hundred pounds for a good detective yarn. You apply for it."
"But I couldn't make up one of those plots—so intricate."
"Pooh. It's a trick. You set your puppets in such and such a way and then mix them up. I'll give you the benefit of my experience as a 'tec, and with my plot and your own writing we'll be able to knock up a story for the paper I talk of. Then, with one hundred pounds you'll have a nest-egg to start with."
"I accept with gratitude," said Beecot, moved, "but I really don't know why you should trouble about me."
"Because you're a white man and an honorable gentleman," said the detective, emphatically. "I've got a dear little wife of my own, and she's something like this poor Miss Norman. Then again, though you mightn't think so, I'm something of a Christian, and believe we should help others. I had a hard life, Mr. Beecot, before I became a detective, and many a time have I learned that prayers can be answered. But this is all beside the question," went on Hurd quickly, and with that nervous shame with which an Englishman masks the better part of himself. "I'll see about the story for you. Meanwhile, I am going to a card-party to meet, incidentally, Mr. Grexon Hay."
"Ah! You still suspect him?"
"I do, and with good reason. He's got another mug in tow. Lord George Sandal, the son of Lord—well I needn't mention names, but Hay's trying to clear the young ass out, and I'm on the watch. Hay will never know me as the Count de la Tour. Not he, smart as he is. I'm fly!"
"Do you speak French well?"