«Ah!» said Mr. Bunter, adjusting his arc-lamps and connecting them with the nearest electric light, «and that's more than most of us could say of them as pays us.»
* * *
«Five foot ten,» said Lord Peter, «and not an inch more.» He peered dubiously at the depression in the bed clothes, and measured it a second time with the gentleman-scout's vade-mecum. Parker entered this particular in a neat pocketbook.
«I suppose,» he said, «a six-foot-two man might leave a five-foot-ten depression if he curled himself up.»
«Have you any Scotch blood in you, Parker?» enquired his colleague, bitterly.
«Not that I know of,» replied Parker. «Why?»
«Because of all the cautious, ungenerous, deliberate and cold-blooded devils I know,» said Lord Peter, «you are the most cautious, ungenerous, deliberate and cold-blooded. Here am I, sweating my brains out to introduce a really sensational incident into your dull and disreputable little police investigation, and you refuse to show a single spark of enthusiasm.»
«Well, it's no good jumping at conclusions.»
«Jump? You don't even crawl distantly within sight of a conclusion. I believe if you caught the cat with her head in the cream-jug you'd say it was conceivable that the jug was empty when she got there.»
«Well, it would be conceivable, wouldn't it?»