"I expect she's at the theatre."
She closed her eyes, and the Seraph came back to the door, shaking his head. I tiptoed into the room, looked round the screen and watched Joyce smiling in her sleep. As I looked, her eyes opened and met mine.
"Why, I know you!" she exclaimed. "You're my husband. You took me to the theatre last night, when we saw Mavis Rawnsley. We were in a box, and she was in the stalls. Some one wanted to know where Mavis was. Tell them we saw her at the theatre, will you?"
She held out her hand to me; I bent down, kissed her forehead, and crept out of the room. The Seraph was lying on the bed we had made up for him in my room. I helped him to undress, and retired to the library with a cigar—to forget Joyce and plan the bluffing of Nigel.
My first act was to get into communication with Paddy Culling on the telephone.
"Will you do me another favour?" I began. "Well, it's this. I want you to get hold of Nigel and take him to lunch or dine to-morrow—Sunday—at the Club. Let me know which, and the time. When you've finished eating, lead him away to a quiet corner—the North Smoking Room or the Strangers' Card Room. Hold him in conversation till I come. I shall drop in accidentally, and start pulling his leg. You can help, but do it in moderation; we mustn't make him savage—only uncomfortable. You understand? Right."
Then I went to bed.
On Sunday morning I started out in the direction of Chester Square, and made two discoveries on the way. The first was that our house was being unceasingly watched by a tall Yorkshireman in plain clothes and regulation boots; the second, that the Yorkshireman was in his turn being intermittently watched by Nigel Rawnsley. His opinion of the Criminal Investigation Department must have been as low—if not as kindly—as my own. On two more occasions that day I found him engaged on a flying visit of inspection—to keep Scotland Yard up to the Rawnsley mark and answer the eternal question that Juvenal propounded and Michael Roden amended for his own benefit and mine at Henley.
Elsie received me with anxious enquiries after her sister. I gave a full report, propounded my plan of campaign, and was rewarded by being shown the extensive and beautiful contents of her wardrobe. I should never have believed one woman could accumulate so many clothes; there seemed a dress for every day and evening of the year, and she could have worn a fresh hat each hour without repeating herself. My own rule is to have one suit I can wear in a bad light, and four that I cannot. With hats the practice is even simpler; I flaunt a new one until it is stolen, and then wear the changeling until a substitute of even greater seediness has been supplied. My instincts are conservative, and my hats more symbolical than decorative; for me they typify the great, sad law that every change is a change for the worse.
My only complaint against Elsie was that her wardrobe contained too much of what university authorities would call the "subfuse" element. The most conspicuous garments I could find were a white coat and skirt, white stockings and shoes, black hat and veil, and heliotrope dust coat. I am no judge whether they looked well in combination, but I challenge the purblind to say they were inconspicuous. To my eyes the tout ensemble was so striking that I laid them on a chair and gazed in wondering admiration until it was time to call up Gartside and warn him that I stood in need of luncheon.