Archie had been sitting in his favourite attitude, with his stockinged feet against the pilaster of the fireplace. He had twinkled again.
"I don't think it can be Miss Windus," he had chuckled again. "Anybody can see you can't stand her."
"Oh? Sorry I've allowed that to appear."
"And the college isn't exactly swarming with girls," he had continued.
I had told him that he was dragging the college in entirely on his own responsibility.
"Oh no!" he had said promptly, with a far too cunning glance at me. "You don't put me off like that, old boy! I've got you down to that, and I'm going to hold you to it! Serve you right for your dashed secretiveness! So if it isn't Miss Windus, and it isn't Miss Soames——"
At that I had been able quite calmly to jest. I had fetched up a laugh.
"Steady a minute," I had said. "If you're really bent on going into the Sherlock Holmes business you'll have to do it properly, you know—give reasons for your eliminations. Accuracy's everything. Let's have your reason for ruling Miss Soames out."
"Good old Jeff," he had remarked, laughing; "accurate even in his jokes! Well, say Evie's a young twenty, and you're a damned experienced old thirty—how will that do?"
I believe, taken with all the rest, that it had seemed to him perfectly conclusive.