‘I’d rather he didn’t,’ said Wish.
‘But he hasn’t got ’em right,’ said Sanderson, plugging too much tobacco into his pipe.
‘All the same, I’d rather he didn’t,’ said Wish.
We argued with Wish. He said that for Clayton to go through those gestures was like mocking a serious matter. ‘But you don’t believe——?’ I said. Wish glanced at Clayton, who was staring into the fire, weighing something in his mind. ‘I do—more than half, anyhow, I do,’ said Wish.
‘Clayton,’ said I, ‘you’re too good a liar for us. Most of it was all right. But that disappearance ... happened to be convincing. Tell us, it’s a tale of cock and bull.’
He stood up without heeding me, took the middle of the hearthrug, and faced me. For a moment he regarded his feet thoughtfully, and then for all the rest of the time his eyes were on the opposite wall, with an intent expression. He raised his two hands slowly to the level of his eyes and so began....
Now, Sanderson is a Freemason, a member of the lodge of the Four Kings, which devotes itself so ably to the study and elucidation of all the mysteries of Masonry past and present, and among the students of this lodge Sanderson is by no means the least. He followed Clayton’s motions with a singular interest in his reddish eye. ‘That’s not bad,’ he said, when it was done. ‘You really do, you know, put things together, Clayton, in a most amazing fashion. But there’s one little detail out.’
‘I know,’ said Clayton. ‘I believe I could tell you which.’
‘Well?’
‘This,’ said Clayton, and did a queer little twist and writhing and thrust of the hands.