“The detectives of fiction,” put in Leyland, “are always getting important clues from the water-mark of the paper on which some cryptic document is written, That is where they have the luck. If you pick up the next four pieces of paper you see, and hold them up to the light, you will probably find that three of them have no water-mark at all.”
“I know,” said Angela. “And I used to be told, when I was small, that every genuine piece of silver had a lion stamped on it. But of course they haven’t really. I should think it’s quite likely the wrist-watch you gave me, Miles dear, has no lion on it.” She took it off as she spoke. “Or it must be a teeny-weeny one if there is.”
“I think you’re wrong there, Mrs. Bredon.” It was Brinkman who offered the correction. “If you’ll allow me to have a look at it. . . . There, up there; it’s a little rubbed away, but it’s a lion all right.”
“I thought there always was a lion,” said Bredon, taking out a silver pencil-case with some presence of mind. “Yes, this has got two, one passant and one cabinet size.”
“Let’s see your watch, Mr. Leyland,” suggested Angela, “or is it electro?”
“It should be silver; yes, there’s the little chap.” Immediately afterward, Angela was rewarded by seeing Pulteney take a silver cigarette-case out of his pocket, and handing it over to her. “It’ll be on the inside of this, I suppose? Oh, no, it’s all gilt stuff; yes, I see, here it is on the outside.” It is to be feared that she added “Damn!” under her breath; the cigarette-case had been empty.
“I seem to be the only poor man present,” said Brinkman; “I am all gun-metal.”
Angela did not trouble to influence the conversation further until the “shape” course was finished. Then, rather desperately, she said, “Do smoke, Mr. Leyland, I know you’re dying to. What is a detective without his shag?” and was rewarded by seeing Brinkman take out the gun-metal case and light up. Mr. Pulteney, after verifying his own cigarettelessness, began slowly to fill a briar.
Brinkman’s cigarette, she had seen, was the last in the case; what if it should be the last of its box or of its packet? “I wish I smoked,” she said. “But if I did I would smoke a pipe; it always looks so comfortable. Besides, you can shut your eyes and go to sleep with a pipe, which must be rather dangerous with a cigarette.”
“You’d lose the taste of the pipe if you did,” objected Brinkman. “It’s an extraordinary thing, how little satisfaction you can get out of smoking in the dark.”