“I thought so,” he said presently, “come and look here.”
Tied to a chair, exactly as it had been in the case of Mill, was a neat white card, and on it were the words, "With the Compliments of the League".
“What are you going to do about this?” asked Clowes. “Come into my room and talk it over.”
“I’ll tidy this place up first,” said Trevor. He felt that the work would be a relief. “I don’t want people to see this. It mustn’t get about. I’m not going to have my study turned into a sort of side-show, like Mill’s. You go and change. I shan’t be long.”
“I will never desert Mr Micawber,” said Clowes. “Friend, my place is by your side. Shut the door and let’s get to work.”
Ten minutes later the room had resumed a more or less—though principally less—normal appearance. The books and chairs were back in their places. The ink was sopped up. The broken photographs were stacked in a neat pile in one corner, with a rug over them. The mantelpiece was still empty, but, as Clowes pointed out, it now merely looked as if Trevor had been pawning some of his household gods. There was no sign that a devastating secret society had raged through the study.
Then they adjourned to Clowes’ study, where Trevor sank into Clowes’ second-best chair—Clowes, by an adroit movement, having appropriated the best one—with a sigh of enjoyment. Running and passing, followed by the toil of furniture-shifting, had made him feel quite tired.
“It doesn’t look so bad now,” he said, thinking of the room they had left. “By the way, what did you do with that card?”
“Here it is. Want it?”
“You can keep it. I don’t want it.”