Lord Tilbury was perplexed.
“Do you know Wrenn? How do you know Wrenn?”
“I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting him, but we are next-door neighbours. I have taken the house adjoining his. Mon Repos, Burberry Road, is the address. You can see for yourself how convenient this will be. Not only shall we toil all day in the office to make Pyke’s Home Companion more and more of a force among the intelligentsia of Great Britain but in the evenings, as we till our radishes, I shall look over the fence and say, ‘Wrenn,’ and Wrenn will say, ‘Yes, Shotter?’ And I shall say, ‘Wrenn, how would it be to run a series on the eradication of pimples in canaries?’ ‘Shotter,’ he will reply, dropping his spade in his enthusiasm, ‘this is genius. ’Twas a lucky day, boy, for the old Home Companion when you came to us.’ But I am wasting time. I should be about my business. Good-bye, Mrs. Hammond. Good-bye, Lord Tilbury. Don’t trouble to come with me. I will find my way.”
He left the room with the purposeful step of the man of affairs, and Lord Tilbury uttered a sound which was almost a groan.
“Insane!” he ejaculated. “Perfectly insane!”
Mrs. Hammond, womanlike, was not satisfied with simple explanation.
“There is something behind this, George!”
“And I can’t do a thing,” moaned His Lordship, chafing, as your strong man will, against the bonds of fate. “I simply must humour this boy, or the first thing I know he will be running off on some idiotic prank and Pynsent will be sending me cables asking why he has left me.”
“There is something behind this,” repeated Mrs. Hammond weightily. “It stands to reason. Even a boy like this young Shotter would not take a house next door to Mr. Wrenn the moment he landed unless he had some motive. George, there is a girl at the bottom of this.”
Lord Tilbury underwent a sort of minor convulsion. His eyes bulged and he grasped the arms of his chair.