«Curse you,» said Lord Peter. He screwed his monocle into his eye, and bent over the pillow, breathing hard and tightly through his nose.
«Here, give me the tweezers,» he said presently. «good heavens, man, don't blow like that, you might be a whale.» He nipped up an almost invisible object from the linen.
«What is it?» asked Parker.
«It's a hair,» said Wimsey grimly, his hard eyes growing harder. «Let's go and look at Levy's hats, shall we? And you might just ring for that fellow with the churchyard name, do you mind?»
Mr. Graves, when summoned, found Lord Peter Wimsey squatting on the floor of the dressing-room before a row of hats arranged upside-down before him.
«Here you are,» said that nobleman cheerfully, «now, Graves, this is a guessin' competition — a sort of three — hat trick, to mix metaphors. Here are nine hats, including three top-hats. Do you identify all these hats as belonging to Sir Reuben Levy? You do? Very good. Now I have three guesses as to which hat he wore the night he disappeared, and if I guess right, I win; if I don't, you win. See? Ready? Go. I suppose you know the answer yourself, by the way.»
«Do I understand your lordship to be asking which hat Sir Reuben wore when he went out on Monday night, your lordship?»
«No, you don't understand a bit,» said Lord Peter. «I'm asking if you know — don't tell me, I'm going to guess.»
«I do know, your lordship,» said Mr. Graves, reprovingly.
«Well,» said Lord Peter, «as he was dinin' at the Ritz he wore a topper. Here are three toppers. In three guesses I'd be bound to hit the right one, wouldn't I? That don't seem very sportin'. I'll take one guess. It was this one.»