"You might have pity on my benighted curiosity...."
"Meaning this outfit?" Lanyard assented, and Phinuit deliberated over the question. "I don't know as I ought in the absence of my esteemed associates.... But what's bothering you most?"
"I have seen something of the world, monsieur, and as you are aware not a little of the underside of it; but never have I met with a combination of such peculiar elements as this possesses. Regard it, if you will, from my view-point, that of an outsider, for one moment."
Phinuit grinned. "It must give you furiously to think--as you'd say."
"But assuredly! Take, for example, yourself, a man of unusual intelligence, such as one is not accustomed to find lending himself to the schemes of ordinary criminals."
"But you have just admitted that we're anything but ordinary."
"Then Mademoiselle Delorme. One knows what the world knows of her, that she has for many years meddled with high affairs, that she had been for many years more a sort of queen of the demi-monde of Paris; but now you tell me she has stopped to profit by association with a professional burglar."
"Profit? I'll say she did. According to my information, it was she who mapped out the campaigns for de Lorgnes; she was G.H.Q. and he merely the high private in the front line trenches; with this difference, that in this instance G.H.Q. was perfectly willing to let the man at the front cop all the glory.... She took the cash and let the credit go, nor heeded rumblings of the distant drum!"
"Then your picturesque confrère, Captain Monk; and the singular circumstance that he owns a wealthy cousin of the same name; and this beautiful little yacht which you seem so free to utilize for the furtherance of your purposes. Is it strange, then, that one's curiosity is provoked, one's imagination alternately stimulated and baffled?"
"No; I suppose not," Phinuit conceded thoughtfully. "Still, it's far simpler than you'd think."