“You must have two wives,” said Dr. O’Grady. “You told me this instant that your wife was bathing with you on the shore. And now you say Mrs. Dick wasn’t bathing. Those two statements can’t possibly both be true about the same woman. But I won’t go into that yet. Later on you shall have an opportunity of clearing yourself if you can. First of all, I want to get to the bottom of this bicycle business, which seems to be less complicated.”
He turned to Mr. Sanders. “You say that you were engaged in mending Mrs. Dick’s bicycle when the Emperor came on you.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Sanders. “At least I wanted to mend it.”
“That’s not exactly the same thing. I wish you’d try to be accurate. There’s no use my attempting to unravel this tangle and get at the truth for you if you won’t be careful what you say. Go on.”
“I knocked for some time at the door, but nobody came to me. Then I——”
“I expect,” said the doctor, “that the Emperor was in the Chamber of Research at the time, concocting some new kind of dynamite. That’s his favourite occupation.”
“Good God!” said Mr. Sanders.
“It’s all right. Don’t be afraid. The mixtures he makes hardly ever go off. And in any case he won’t want to blow you up unless you are a soldier. You’re not in the army, are you? You don’t look as if you were.”
“No.”
“Or in the militia? The Emperor has a perfect horror of militiamen. Hasn’t he, Patsy?”