Wilkes looked grave. "Pajamas seem to be the thing with him this time, sir—it's the queerest go! That's a new one, that is!" He shifted contemplatively. "The last time it was lizards and the time before blue dachshunds, but his main stand-by, so to speak, is piebald rattlesnakes—them we're used to; but this new turn, pajamas, gets me!" He shook his head dubiously. "And he won't take his off—you can't get him to; he just gets kinder peevish and goes off on the queerest streak of freak talk you ever heard. Perkins tried to coax him to take a bath, but he said he never had taken a bath in his life—and he called Perkins something awful—some name about a yard long. It squelched Perkins so that he—"
"But the message?" I suggested nervously.
"I was just a-coming to that, sir. He asks me if I knew whether you were still on the place; and when I said you were, he says to me kinder excited and impressive like: 'Well, you go to him at once—at once—and tell him I'm on the trail of the mystery of those pajamas, and I'll soon know as much about 'em as he does. Just tell him that—he'll know what I mean.'"
"Oh!" I gasped shortly.
"Yes, sir," Wilkes nodded, "but that ain't quite all. He says: 'Tell Mr. Lightnut that when I first saw those pajamas in his rooms—'" Wilkes paused inquiringly. "Did you say something, sir?"
I had not—I had only groaned!
He went on, repeating as by rote: "'When I found and took them away, I was curious and amused, but skeptical—firmly skeptical—of there being any dark mystery about them. But now I know I let myself be deceived and I mean to get at the bottom of the whole thing.'"
Wilkes seemed to kind of waver and fade before me, and then go out like a candle. Then he came back into view and I heard his voice again:
"'And what's more, you tell him I say—'"
The butler hesitated and seemed embarrassed—his heavy jowls reddened a little. He looked beyond me and coughed.