“Come on, now,” said the gruff man impatiently. “No one can leave that house just yet. And we want you particularly—to ask you a few questions.”
“A detective!” sighed Mr. Wagstaffe. “I knew it! For his clothes are very plain.”
They started back, the plain-clothes man holding his arm. It was still raining hard—one of those afternoons when people paid to watch it rain on a nice new tarpaulin at the new tennis-courts at Wimbledon.
“I return under protest,” said Mr. Wagstaffe, “though I wouldn’t object to an umbrella as well.”
“We know you,” the plain-clothes man grinned disagreeably. “We know you. And I’ve had my eye on you in there—you weren’t invited, you weren’t.”
They walked up the soaked red strip of carpet into the spacious portico, through the spacious portico into the spacious Lounge Hall, and so into a little room. The garden-party, it seemed, was still in full swing in the drawing-rooms; there was music, there was gaiety, but in the little room downstairs were only the plain-clothes man and the cavalier of the streets. Methodically, the plain-clothes man began to search the cavalier’s pockets. Contentedly, the cavalier let him.
“If it’s cigarette-cards for your children you’re looking for,” he said, “I’m afraid I left my collection at home. And if it’s not cigarette-cards, what the hell are you looking for?”
“Diamonds,” said the detective. “Off with your shoes now.”
“I always was a devil for diamonds. Whose diamond?”
“Lady of the house lost famous diamond-ring. Come on now, off with your shoes.”