"Oh, you will again—soon—when I wish it. We met just now at a grave, and there was more buried in that grave than the grave-diggers know: and we both stood looking at it: but I fancy there were more X-rays in my eye to see what was buried there than in yours!"
Driven beyond the bounds of patience, Winter threw out an arm in angry protest.
"Ha! ha! ha!" tittered Furneaux.
An important official at Scotland Yard must learn early the value of self-control. Consumed with a certain sense of the monstrous in this display of untimely mirth, Winter only gnawed a bristle or two of his mustache. He looked strangely at Furneaux, and they lingered together, loath to part, having still something bitter and rankling to say, but not knowing quite what, since men who have been all in all to each other cannot quarrel without some childish tone of schoolboy spite mingling in the wrangle.
"I believe I know where you are going now!" jeered Furneaux.
"Ah, you were always good at guessing."
"Going to pump the Pauline girl about Miss Marsh."
"True, of course, but not a very profound analysis considering that I am just ten yards from the house."
"Don't you even know where Miss Rosalind Marsh is?" asked Furneaux, producing a broken cigar from a pocket and sniffing it, simply because he was well aware that the trick displeased his superior.
"No. Do you?" Winter jeered back at him.