"If you wait till it is dark you needn't be afraid of anyone seeing you," protested my wife.
"And run the risk of being detected by some suspicious policeman. No, thank you."
"Then if you won't do it yourself you must find someone who will. It is our last hope of persuading Cook to stay."
"By heaven!" I cried, looking at my watch, I am a quarter-of-an-hour late. I must run."
This was my customary device to evade the embarrassing dilemmas which my wife not infrequently thrust upon me at this hour. So for the moment I escaped. All day in the office I was fully occupied. From time to time the memory of Dundee lying stark in the basement obtruded itself upon my thoughts, but I dismissed the vision as one does a problem one has not the courage to face.
The problem remained unsolved when I stepped out of the train on my return from the City. To gain time for reflection I resolved to make a détour. As I struck into an unfamiliar side street, I looked up, and there in front of me stood an undertaker's shop.
The inspiration! I entered. From the back premises advanced to meet me the undertaker, with a visage tentatively wobegone, not yet knowing whether I was widower, orphan, businesslike executor or merely the busybody family friend. I unfolded my difficulty. Beneath the outer crust of professional melancholy there evidently seethed within the undertaker a lava of joviality.
"Certainly, Sir, certainly," he said. "It is not perhaps strictly in my line, but one of my assistants will be delighted to earn an extra shilling or so by obliging you. What name and address?"
I joyfully gave both and made my way home.
Midway through dinner came a ring at the front-door bell. Palmer interrupted her service to answer, and returned to me with a card on a salver.