«Wonderful active, sir,» agreed the waiter, «and with his game leg, too, you'd be surprised. But there, sir, I often think, when a man's once past a certain age, the older he grows the tougher he gets, and women the same or more so.»
«Very likely,» said Lord Peter, calling up and dismissing the mental picture of a gentleman of eighty with a game leg carrying a dead body over the roof of a Battersea flat at midnight. «“He's tough, sir, tough, is old Joey Bagstock, tough and devilish sly”», he added, thoughtlessly.
«Indeed, sir?» said the waiter. «I couldn't say, I'm sure.»
«I beg your pardon,» said Lord Peter, «I was quoting poetry. Very silly of me. I got the habit at my mother's knee and I can't break myself of it.»
«No, sir,» said the waiter, pocketing a liberal tip. «Thank you very much, sir. You'll find the house easy. Just afore you come to Penny-farthing Street, sir, about two turnings off, on the right hand side opposite.»
«Afraid that disposes of Crimplesham-X,» said Lord Peter. «I'm rather sorry; he was a fine sinister figure as I had pictured him. Still, his may yet be the brain behind the hands — the aged spider sitting invisible in the centre of the vibrating web, you know, Bunter.»
«Yes, my lord,» said Bunter. They were walking up the street together.
«There is the office over the way,» pursued Lord Peter. «I think, Bunter, you might step into this little shop and purchase a sporting paper, and if I do not emerge from the villain's lair — say within three-quarters of an hour, you may take such steps as your perspicuity may suggest.»
Mr. Bunter turned into the shop as desired, and Lord Peter walked across and rang the lawyer's bell with decision.
«The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth is my long suit here, I fancy,» he murmured, and when the door was opened by a clerk he delivered over his card with an unflinching air.