"Kidnapping can't hurt him. It's what he needs. And, anyway, if he is I'll pay the bill and be glad to do it. Take him off to bed now. To-morrow you can start looking up schools. Great Godfrey!" He hopped to the writing-desk and glared disgustedly at the debris on it. "Who's been making this mess on my desk? It's hard! It's darned hard! The only room in the house that I ask to have for my own, where I can get a little peace, and I find it turned into a beer-garden, and coffee or some damned thing spilled all over my writing-desk!"
"That isn't coffee, Peter," said Mrs. Pett mildly. This cave-man whom she had married under the impression that he was a gentle domestic pet had taken all the spirit out of her. "It's Willie's explosive."
"Willie's explosive?"
"Lord Wisbeach—I mean the man who pretended to be Lord Wisbeach—dropped it there."
"Dropped it there? Well, why didn't it explode and blow the place to Hoboken, then?"
Mrs. Pett looked helplessly at Willie, who thrust his fingers into his mop of hair and rolled his eyes.
"There was fortunately some slight miscalculation in my formula, uncle Peter," he said. "I shall have to look into it to-morrow. Whether the trinitrotoluol—"
Mr. Pett uttered a sharp howl. He beat the air with his clenched fists. He seemed to be having a brain-storm.
"Has this—this fish been living on me all this time—have I been supporting this—this buzzard in luxury all these years while he fooled about with an explosive that won't explode! He pointed an accusing finger at the inventor. Look into it tomorrow, will you? Yes, you can look into it to-morrow after six o'clock! Until then you'll be working—for the first time in your life—working in my office, where you ought to have been all along." He surveyed the crowded room belligerently. "Now perhaps you will all go back to bed and let people get a little sleep. Go home!" he said to the detective.
Miss Trimble stood her ground. She watched Mrs. Pett pass away with Ogden, and Willie Partridge head a stampede of geniuses, but she declined to move.