Mrs. Crashaw: ‘Where is he, then?’
Lawton: ‘In this house.’
Mrs. Crashaw: ‘Now, Dr. Lawton, you and I are old friends—I shouldn’t like to say how old—but if you don’t instantly be serious, I—I’ll carry my rheumatism to somebody else.’
Lawton: ‘My dear Mrs. Crashaw, you know how much I prize that rheumatism of yours! I will be serious—I will be only too serious. The garotter is Mr. Roberts himself.’
All, horror-struck: ‘Oh!’
Lawton: ‘He went out without his watch. He thought he was robbed, but he wasn’t. He ran after the supposed thief, our poor friend Bemis here, and took Bemis’s watch away, and brought it home for his own.’
Young Bemis: ‘Yes, but—’
Mrs. Bemis: ‘But, papa—’
Bemis: ‘How do you know it? I can see how such a thing might happen, but—how do you know it did?’
Lawton: ‘I divined it.’