“To these rooms?”
“No. I hadn’t taken them then. We stayed a night at the Houston. That’s the night I had such a joke on Stanley.”
“That sounds interesting.”
“I don’t know how he did it, but while he was dressing he knocked the basin off the stand and it broke and soaked his shoes and deluged the room. You know they have old-fashioned separate basins there, not running water as you get abroad. I imagine he must have set the basin down on a corner of the towel, and when he picked up the towel it twitched the basin off. The wretched thing must have been cracked, for it went into two pieces. But they charged him for it, all right.”
“Rough luck, Mr. Pyke. And after that you both thought one night enough to stay?”
Pyke laughed.
“I wanted rooms,” he explained. “Next day I found these and moved in.”
“I suppose your late cousin went back to Ashburton at the same time?”
“Not quite directly, I think. He went to see some people near Bath. I believe he said for two days only, but I’m not sure.”
“Do you soon return to the Argentine, Mr. Pyke?”