“Let’s see,” said the Major, addressing a large brown-paper covered package standing in the corner of the room, “you’re the bird-cage for Lady Sylvia at The Hague. Two pounds of candles for Mrs. Harry Deepdale at Berlin; the razor blades for Sir Archibald at Prague; the Teddy bear for Marjorie; polo-balls for the Hussars at Constantinople—there! I think that’s the lot! Hullo, hullo, who the devil’s that?”
With a groaning of wires a jangling bell tinkled through the hall (the Major’s bedroom was on the ground floor). Sims, the aged ex-butler, who, with his wife, “did for” his lodgers in more ways than one, was out and the single servant-maid had her Sunday off. Euan MacTavish glanced at his wrist watch. It showed the hour to be ten minutes past nine. A flowered silk smoking-coat over his evening clothes and a briar pipe in his mouth, he went out into the hall and opened the front door.
It was a drenching night. The lamps from a taxi which throbbed dully in the street outside the house threw a gleaming band of light on the shining pavement. At the door stood a taxi-driver.
“There’s a lady asking for Major MacTavish,” he said, pointing at the cab. The Major stepped across to the cab and opened the door.
“Oh, Euan,” said a girl’s voice, “how lucky I am to catch you!”
“Why, Mary,” exclaimed the Major, “what on earth brings you round to me on a night like this? I only came up from the country this afternoon and I’m off for Constantinople in the morning!”
“Euan,” said Mary Trevert, “I want to talk to you. Where can we talk?”
The Major raised his eyebrows. He was a little man with grizzled hair and finely cut, rather sharp features.
“Well,” he remarked, “there’s not a soul in the house, and I’ve only got a bedroom here. Though we’re cousins, Mary, my dear, I don’t know that you ought to....”
“You’re a silly old-fashioned old dear,” exclaimed the girl, “and I’m coming in. No, I’ll keep the cab. We shall want it!”