'Ho!' he said again. 'Ho! Ho!' As if he were starting a drinking-chorus in a comic opera, confound him.
Then I got what amounted to the brain-wave of a lifetime.
'Who dusts these things?' I said, turning on the parlourmaid.
'I don't.'
'I didn't say you did. I said who did.'
'Mary. The housemaid, of course.'
'Exactly. As I suspected. As I foresaw. Mary, officer, is notoriously the worst smasher in London. There have been complaints about her on all sides. You see what has happened? The wretched girl has broken the glass of my photograph and, not being willing to come forward and admit it in an honest, manly way, has taken the thing off and concealed it somewhere.'
'Ho!' said the policeman, still working through the drinking-chorus.
'Well, ask her. Go down and ask her.'
'You go down and ask her,' said the policeman to the parlourmaid. 'If it's going to make him any happier.'