“If he is mad,” began Inglewood.
“Well,” said Moses, “when a cove gets out on the tile the first night there’s generally a tile loose.”
“You never objected before,” said Diana Duke rather stiffly, “and you’re generally pretty free with your complaints.”
“I don’t compline of him,” said Moses magnanimously, “the poor chap’s ’armless enough; you might tie ’im up in the garden here and ’e’d make noises at the burglars.”
“Moses,” said Moon with solemn fervour, “you are the incarnation of Common Sense. You think Mr. Innocent is mad. Let me introduce you to the incarnation of Scientific Theory. He also thinks Mr. Innocent is mad.—Doctor, this is my friend Mr. Gould.—Moses, this is the celebrated Dr. Pym.” The celebrated Dr. Cyrus Pym closed his eyes and bowed. He also murmured his national war-cry in a low voice, which sounded like “Pleased to meet you.”
“Now you two people,” said Michael cheerfully, “who both think our poor friend mad, shall jolly well go into that house over there and prove him mad. What could be more powerful than the combination of Scientific Theory with Common Sense? United you stand; divided you fall. I will not be so uncivil as to suggest that Dr. Pym has no common sense; I confine myself to recording the chronological accident that he has not shown us any so far. I take the freedom of an old friend in staking my shirt that Moses has no scientific theory. Yet against this strong coalition I am ready to appear, armed with nothing but an intuition—which is American for a guess.”
“Distinguished by Mr. Gould’s assistance,” said Pym, opening his eyes suddenly. “I gather that though he and I are identical in primary di-agnosis there is yet between us something that cannot be called a disagreement, something which we may perhaps call a—” He put the points of thumb and forefinger together, spreading the other fingers exquisitely in the air, and seemed to be waiting for somebody else to tell him what to say.
“Catchin’ flies?” inquired the affable Moses.
“A divergence,” said Dr. Pym, with a refined sigh of relief; “a divergence. Granted that the man in question is deranged, he would not necessarily be all that science requires in a homicidal maniac—”
“Has it occurred to you,” observed Moon, who was leaning on the gate again, and did not turn round, “that if he were a homicidal maniac he might have killed us all here while we were talking.”