I The fount of riches and the Terror of the departments, clothed in the latest pattern of sumptuous¹ pyjamas², lay in the midst of his magnificent and spacious³ bed, and, with the shaded electric globe over his brow, gazed at the splendours of the vast bedroom which Eve had allotted⁴ to him. It was full, but not too full, of the finest Directoire furniture, and the walls were covered with all manner of engravings and watercolours. Evidently this apartment had been the lair⁵ of the real owner and creator of the great home. Mr. Prohack could appreciate the catholicity and sureness of taste which it displayed. He liked the cornice as well as the form of the dressing⁶-table, and the Cumberland landscape by C.J. Holmes as well as the large Piranesi etching of an imaginary prison, which latter particularly interested him because it happened to be an impression between two "states"—a detail which none but a true amateur could savour. The prison depicted⁷ was a terrible place of torment⁸, but it was beautiful, and the view of it made Mr. Prohack fancy, very absurdly, that he too was in prison, just as securely as if he had been bolted and locked therein. His eye ranged about the room and saw nothing that was not lovely and that he did not admire. Yet he derived⁹ little or no authentic¹⁰ pleasure from what he beheld¹¹, partly because it was the furnishing of a prison and partly because he did not own it. He had often preached against the mania¹² for owning things, but now—and even more clearly than when he had sermonised Paul Spinner—he perceived, and hated to perceive, that ownership was probably an essential ingredient of most enjoyments¹³. The man, foolishly priding himself on being a philosopher, was indeed a fleshly mass of strange inconsistencies.
 
More important, he was losing the assurance that he would sleep soundly that night. He could not drag his mind off his co-heiress and his co-heir. The sense of humiliation¹⁴ at being intimately connected and classed with them would not leave him. He felt himself—absurdly once again—to be mysteriously associated with them in a piece of sharp practice or even of knavery¹⁵. They constituted another complication of his existence. He wanted to disown them and never to speak to them again, but he knew that he could not disown them. He was living in gorgeousness for the sole reason that he and they were in the same boat.
 
Eve came in, opening the door cautiously at first and then rushing forward as soon as she saw that the room was not in darkness. He feared for an instant that she might upbraid¹⁶ him for deserting her. But no! Triumphant¹⁷ happiness sat on her forehead, and affectionate concern for him was in her eyes. She plumped down, in her expensive radiance, on the bed by his side.
 
"Well?" said he.
 
"I'm so glad you decided¹⁸ to go to bed," said she. "You must be tired, and late nights don't suit you. I just slipped away for a minute to see if you were all right. Are you?" She puckered¹⁹ her shining brow exactly as of old, and bent²⁰ and kissed him as of old. One of her best kisses.
 
But the queer fellow, though touched by her attention, did not like her being so glad that he had gone to bed. The alleged²¹ philosopher would have preferred her to express some dependence²² upon his manly²³ support in what was for her a tremendous event.
 
"I feel I shall sleep," he lied.
 
"I'm sure you will, darling," she agreed. "Don't you think it's all been a terrific success?" she asked naïvely.
 
He answered, smiling:
 
"I'm dying to see The Daily Picture to-morrow. I think I shall tell the newsagent in future only to deliver it on the days when you're in it."
 
"Don't be silly," she said, too pleased with herself, however, to resent his irony²⁴. She was clothed in mail that night against all his shafts²⁵.
 
He admitted, what he had always secretly known, that she was an elementary creature; she would have been just as at home in the Stone Age as in the twentieth century—and perhaps more at home. (Was Lady Massulam equally elementary? No? Yes?) Still, Eve was necessary to him.
 
Only, up to a short while ago, she had been his complement²⁶; whereas now he appeared to be her complement. He, the philosopher and the source of domestic wisdom, was fully²⁷ aware, in a superior and lofty manner, that she was the eternal child deceived by toys, gewgaws, and illusions; nevertheless he was only her complement, the indispensable husband and payer-out. She was succeeding without any brain-work from him. He noticed that she was not wearing the pearls he had given her. No doubt she had merely forgotten at the last moment to put them on. She was continually forgetting them and leaving them about. But this negligent²⁹ woman was the organiser in chief of the great soiree! Well, if it had succeeded, she was lucky.
 
"I must run off," said she, starting up, busy, proud, falsely calm, the general of a victorious³⁰ army as the battle draws to a close. She embraced him again, and he actually felt comforted.... She was gone.
 
"As I grow older," he reflected, "I'm hanged if I don't understand life less and less."
 
 
II
He was listening to the distant rhythm of the music when he mistily³¹ comprehended that there was no music and that the sounds in his ear were not musical. He could not believe that he had been asleep and had awakened³², but the facts were soon too much for his delusion³³ and he said with the air of a discoverer: "I've been asleep," and turned on the light.
 
There were voices and footsteps in the corridors or on the landing,—whispers, loud and yet indistinct talking, tones indicating that the speakers were excited, if not frightened, and that their thoughts had been violently wrenched³⁴ away from the pursuit of pleasure. His watch showed two o'clock. The party was over, the last automobile³⁵ had departed, and probably even the tireless Eliza Fiddle³⁶ was asleep in her new home. Next Mr. Prohack noticed that the door of his room was ajar.
 
He had no anxiety. Rather he felt quite gay and careless,—the more so as he had wakened up with the false sensation of complete refreshment³⁷ produced by short, heavy slumber³⁸. He thought:
 
"Whatever has happened, I have had and shall have nothing to do with it, and they must deal with the consequences themselves as best they can." And as a measure of precaution against being compromised, he switched off the light. He heard Eve's voice, surprisingly near his door:
 
"I simply daren't tell him! No, I daren't!"
 
The voice was considerably³⁹ agitated⁴⁰, but he smiled maliciously⁴¹ to himself, thinking:
 
"It can't be anything very awful, because she only talks in that strain when it's nothing at all. She loves to pretend she's afraid of me. And moreover I don't believe there's anything on earth she daren't tell me."
 
He heard another voice, reasoning in reply, that resembled Mimi's. Hadn't that girl gone home yet? And he heard Sissie's voice and Charlie's. But for him all these were inarticulate.
 
Then his room was filled with swift blinding light. Somebody had put a hand through the doorway⁴² and turned the light on. It must be Eve.... It was Eve, scared and distressed⁴³, but still in complete war-paint.
 
"I'm so relieved you're awake, Arthur," she said, approaching the bed as though she anticipated the bed would bite her.
 
"I'm not awake. I'm asleep, officially. My poor girl, you've ruined the finest night I was ever going to have in all my life."
 
She ignored his complaint, absolutely.
 
"Arthur," she said, her face twitching⁴⁴ in every direction, and all her triumph fallen from her, "Arthur, I've lost my pearls. They're gone! Some one must have taken them!"
 
Mr. Prohack's reaction to this piece of more-than-midnight news was to break into hearty⁴⁵ and healthy laughter; he appeared to be genuinely diverted; and when Eve protested against such an attitude he said:
 
"My child, anything that strikes you as funny after being wakened up at two o'clock in the morning is very funny, very funny indeed. How can I help laughing?" Eve thereupon began to cry, weakly.
 
"Come here, please," said he.
 
And she came and sat on the bed, but how differently from the previous visit! She was now beaten by circumstances, and she turned for aid to his alleged more powerful mind and deeper wisdom. In addition to being amused, the man was positively⁴⁶ happy, because he was no longer a mere²⁸ complement! So he comforted her, and put his hands on her shoulders.
 
"Don't worry," said he, gently. "And after all I'm not surprised the necklace has been pinched."
 
"Not surprised? Arthur!"
 
"No. You collect here half the notorious smart people in London. Fifty per cent of them go through one or other of the Courts; five per cent end by being detected criminals, and goodness knows what per cent end by being undetected criminals. Possibly two per cent treat marriage seriously, and possibly one per cent is not in debt. That's the atmosphere you created, and it's an atmosphere in which pearls are apt to melt away. Hence I am not surprised, and you mustn't be. Still, it would be interesting to know how the things melted away. Were you wearing them?"
 
"Of course I was wearing them. There was nothing finer here to-night—that I saw."
 
"You hadn't got them on when you came in here before."
 
"Hadn't I?" said Eve, thoughtful.
 
"No, you hadn't."
 
"Then why didn't you tell me?" Eve demanded suddenly, almost fiercely, through her tears, withdrawing her shoulders from his hands.
 
"Well," said Mr. Prohack. "I thought you'd know what you'd got on, or what you hadn't got on."
 
"I think you might have told me. If you had perhaps the—"
 
Mr. Prohack put his hand over her mouth.
 
"Stop," said he. "My sweet child, I can save you a lot of trouble. It's all my fault. If I hadn't been a miracle of stupidity the necklace would never have disappeared. This point being agreed to, let us go on to the next. When did you find out your sad loss?"
 
"It was Miss Winstock who asked me what I'd done with my necklace. I put my hand to my throat, and it was gone. It must have come undone⁴⁷."
 
"Didn't you say to me a fortnight or so ago that the little safety-chain had gone wrong?"
 
"Did I?" said Eve, innocently.
 
"Did you have the safety-chain repaired?"
 
"I was going to have it done to-morrow. You see, if I'd sent it to be done to-day, then I couldn't have worn the necklace to-night, could I?"
 
"Very true," Mr. Prohack concurred⁴⁸.
 
"But who could have taken it?"
 
"Ah! Are you sure that it isn't lying on the floor somewhere?"
 
"Every place where I've been has been searched—thoroughly⁴⁹. It's quite certain that it must have been picked up and pocketed."
 
"Then by a man, seeing that women have no pockets—except their husbands'. I'm beginning to feel quite like a detective already. By the way, lady, the notion of giving a reception in a house like this without a detective disguised as a guest was rather grotesque⁵⁰."
 
"But of course I had detectives!" Eve burst out. "I had two private ones. I thought one ought to be enough, but as soon as the agents saw the inventory⁵¹ of knicknacks and things, they advised me to have two men. One of them's here still. In fact he's waiting to see you. The Scotland Yard people are very annoying. They've refused to do anything until morning."
 
That Eve should have engaged detectives was something of a blow to the masculine superiority of Mr. Prohack. However, he kept himself in countenance⁵² by convincing himself in secret that she had not thought of the idea; the idea must have been given to her by another person—probably Mimi, who nevertheless was also a woman.
 
"And do you seriously expect me to interview a detective in the middle of the night?" demanded Mr. Prohack.
 
"He said he should like to see you. But of course if you don't feel equal to it, my poor boy, I'll tell him so."
 
"What does he want to see me for? I've nothing to do with it, and I know nothing."
 
"He says that as you bought the necklace he must see you—and the sooner the better."
 
This new aspect of the matter seemed to make Mr. Prohack rather thoughtful.
 
 
 
III
 
 
Eve brought in to her husband, who had improved his moral stamina⁵³ and his physical charm by means of the finest of his dressing-gowns, a dark, thin young man, clothed to marvellous perfection, with a much-loved moustache, and looking as fresh as if he was just going to a party. Mr. Prohack of course recognised him as one of the guests.
 
"Good morning," said Mr. Prohack. "So you are the detective."
 
"Yes, sir," answered the detective, formally.
 
"Do you know, all the evening I was under the impression that you were First Secretary to the Czecho-Slovakian Legation."
 
"No, sir," answered the detective, formally.
 
"Well! Well! I think there is a proverb to the effect that appearances are deceptive⁵⁴."
 
"Is there indeed, sir?" said the detective, with unshaken gravity. "In our business we think that appearances ought to be deceptive."
 
"Now talking of your business," Mr. Prohack remarked with one of his efforts to be very persuasive⁵⁵. "What about this unfortunate affair?"
 
"Yes, sir, what about it?" The detective looked askance at Eve.
 
"I suppose there's no doubt the thing's been stolen—By the way, sit on the end of the bed, will you? Then you'll be near me."
 
"Yes, sir," said the detective, sitting down. "There is no doubt the necklace has been removed by some one, either for a nefarious⁵⁶ purpose or for a joke."
 
"Ah! A joke?" meditated⁵⁷ Mr. Prohack, aloud.
 
"It certainly hasn't been taken for a joke," said Eve warmly. "Nobody that I know well enough for them to play such a trick would dream of playing it."
 
"Then," said Mr. Prohack, "we are left all alone with the nefarious purpose. I had a sort of a notion that I should meet the nefarious purpose, and here it is! I suppose there's little hope?"
 
"Well, sir. You know what happens to a stolen pearl necklace. The pearls are separated. They can be sold at once, one at a time, or they can be kept for years and then sold. Pearls, except the very finest, leave no trace when they get a fair start."
 
"What I can't understand," Eve exclaimed, "is how it could have dropped off without me noticing it."
 
"Oh! I can easily understand that," said Mr. Prohack, with a peculiar⁵⁸ intonation⁵⁹.
 
"I've known ladies lose even their hair without noticing anything," said the detective firmly. "Not to mention other items."
 
"But without anybody else noticing it either?" Eve pursued her own train of thought.
 
"Somebody did notice it," said the detective, writing on a small piece of paper.
 
"Who?"
 
"The person who took the necklace."
 
"Well, of course I know that," Eve spoke⁶⁰ impatiently. "But who can it be? I feel sure it's one of the new servants or one of the hired waiters."
 
"In our business, madam, we usually suspect servants and waiters last." Then turning round very suddenly he demanded: "Who's that at the door?"
 
Eve, startled, moved towards the door, and in the same instant the detective put a small piece of paper into Mr. Prohack's lap, and Mr. Prohack read on the paper:
 
"Should like see you alone." The detective picked up the paper again. Mr. Prohack laughed joyously⁶¹ within himself.
 
"There's nobody at the door," said Eve. "How you frightened me!"
 
"Marian," said Mr. Prohack, fully inspired. "Take my keys off there, will you, and go to my study and unlock the top right-hand drawer of the big desk. You'll find a blue paper at the top at the back. Bring it to me. I don't know which is the right key, but you'll soon see."
 
And when Eve, eager with her important mission, had departed, Mr. Prohack continued to the detective:
 
"Pretty good that, eh, for an improvisation⁶²? The key of that drawer isn't on that ring at all. And even if she does manage to open the drawer there's no blue paper in there at all. She'll be quite some time."
 
The detective stared at Mr. Prohack in a way to reduce his facile self-satisfaction.
 
"What I wish to know from you, sir, personally, is whether you want this affair to be hushed up, or not."
 
"Hushed up?" repeated Mr. Prohack, to whom the singular suggestion opened out new and sinister⁶⁴ avenues of speculation⁶⁵. "Why hushed up?"
 
"Most of the cases we deal with have to be hushed up sooner or later," answered the detective. "I only wanted to know where I was."
 
"How interesting your work must be," observed Mr. Prohack, with quick sympathetic enthusiasm. "I expect you love it. How did you get into it? Did you serve an apprenticeship⁶⁶? I've often wondered about you private detectives. It's a marvellous life."
 
"I got into it through meeting a man in the Piccadilly Tube. As for liking⁶⁷ it, I shouldn't like any work."
 
"But some people love their work."
 
"So I've heard," said the detective sceptically. "Then I take it you do want the matter smothered⁶⁸?"
 
"But you've telephoned to Scotland Yard about it," said Mr. Prohack. "We can't hush⁶³ it up after that."
 
"I told them," replied the detective grimly, indicating with his head the whole world of the house. "I told them I was telephoning to Scotland Yard; but I wasn't. I was telephoning to our head-office. Then am I to take it you want to find out all you can, but you want it smothered?"
 
"Not at all. I have no reason for hushing anything up."
 
The detective gazed at him in a harsh, lower-middle-class way, and Mr. Prohack quailed⁶⁹ a little before that glance.
 
"Will you please tell me where you bought the necklace?"
 
"I really forget. Somewhere in Bond Street."
 
"Oh! I see," said the detective. "A necklace of forty-nine pearls, over half of them stated to be as big as peas, and it's slipped your memory where you bought it." The detective yawned.
 
"And I'm afraid I haven't kept the receipt either," said Mr. Prohack. "I have an idea the firm went out of business soon after I bought the necklace. At least I seem to remember noticing the shop shut up and then opening again as something else."
 
"No jeweller ever goes out of business in Bond Street," said the detective, and yawned once more. "Well, Mr. Prohack, I don't think I need trouble you any more to-night. If you or Mrs. Prohack will call at our head-office during the course of to-morrow you shall have our official report, and if anything really fresh should turn up I'll telephone you immediately. Good night, Mr. Prohack." The man bowed rather awkwardly as he rose from the bed, and departed.
 
"That chap thinks there's something fishy⁷⁰ between Eve and me," reflected Mr. Prohack. "I wonder whether there is!" But he was still in high spirits when Eve came back into the room.
 
"The sleuth-hound has fled," said he. "I must have given him something to think about."
 
"I've tried all the keys and none of them will fit," Eve complained. "And yet you're always grumbling⁷¹ at me for not keeping my keys in order. If you wanted to show him the blue paper why have you let him go?"
 
"My dear," said Mr. Prohack, "I didn't let him go. He did not consult me, but merely and totally went."
 
"And what is the blue paper?" Eve demanded.
 
"Well, supposing it was the receipt for what I paid for the pearls?"
 
"Oh! I see. But how would that help?"
 
"It wouldn't help," Mr. Prohack replied. "My broken butterfly, you may as well know the worst. The sleuth-hound doesn't hold out much hope."
 
"Yes," said Eve. "And you seem delighted that I've lost my pearls! I know what it is. You think it will be a lesson for me, and you love people to have lessons. Why! Anybody might lose a necklace."
 
"True. Ships are wrecked⁷², and necklaces are lost, and Nelson even lost his eye."
 
"And I'm sure it was one of the servants."
 
"My child, you can be just as happy without a pearl necklace as with one. You really aren't a woman who cares for vulgar display. Moreover, in times like these, when society seems to be toppling over, what is a valuable necklace, except a source of worry? Felicity is not to be attained⁷³ by the—"
 
Eve screamed.
 
"Arthur! If you go on like that I shall run straight out of the house and take cold in the Square."
 
"I will give you another necklace," Mr. Prohack answered this threat, and as her face did not immediately clear, he added: "And a better one."
 
"I don't want another one," said Eve. "I'd sooner be without one. I know it was all my own fault. But you're horrid⁷⁴, and I can't make you out, and I never could make you out. I never did know where I am with you. And I believe you're hiding something from me. I believe you picked up the necklace, and that's why you sent the detective away."
 
Mr. Prohack had to assume his serious voice which always carried conviction to Eve, and which he had never misused⁷⁵. "I haven't picked your necklace up. I haven't seen it. And I know nothing about it." Then he changed again. "And if you'll kindly⁷⁶ step forward and kiss me good morning I'll try to snatch a few moments' unconsciousness."
 
 
 
IV
Mr. Prohack's life at this wonderful period of his career as a practising philosopher at grips with the great world seemed to be a series of violent awakenings. He was awakened, with even increased violence, at about eight o'clock the next—or rather the same—morning, and he would have been awakened earlier if the servants had got up earlier. The characteristic desire of the servants to rise early had, however, been enfeebled by the jolly vigils of the previous night. It was, of course, Eve who rushed in to him—nobody else would have dared. She had hastily cast about her plumpness the transformed Chinese gown, which had the curious appearance of a survival from some former incarnation.
 
"Arthur!" she called, and positively shook the victim. "Arthur!"
 
Mr. Prohack looked at her, dazed by the electric light which she had ruthlessly turned on over his head.
 
"There's a woman been caught in the area. She's a fat woman, and she must have been there all night. The cook locked the area gate and the woman was too fat to climb over. Brool's put her in the servants' hall and fastened the door, and what do you think we ought to do first? Send for the police or telephone to Mr. Crewd—he's the detective you saw last night?"
 
"If she's been in the area all night you'd better put her to bed, and give her some hot brandy and water," said Mr. Prohack.
 
"Arthur, please, please, be serious!" Eve supplicated⁷⁷.
 
"I'm being as serious as a man can who has been disturbed in this pleasant fashion by a pretty woman," said Mr. Prohack attentively⁷⁸ examining the ceiling. "You go and look after the fat lady. Supposing she died from exposure. There'd have to be an inquest. Do you wish to be mixed up in an inquest? What does she want? Whatever it is, give it her, and let her go, and wake me up next week. I feel I can sleep a bit."
 
"Arthur! You'll drive me mad. Can't you see that she must be connected with the necklace business. She must be. It's as clear as day-light!"
 
"Ah!" breathed Mr. Prohack, thoughtfully interested. "I'd forgotten the necklace business."
 
"Yes, well, I hadn't!" said Eve, rather shrewishly. "I had not."
 
"Quite possibly she may be mixed up in the necklace business," Mr. Prohack admitted. "She may be a clue. Look here, don't let's tell anybody outside—not even Mr. Crewd. Let's detect for ourselves. It will be the greatest fun. What does she say for herself?"
 
"She said she was waiting outside the house to catch a young lady with a snub-nose going away from my reception—Mimi Winstock, of course."
 
"Why Mimi Winstock?"
 
"Well, hasn't she got a turned-up nose? And she didn't go away from my reception. She's sleeping here," Eve rejoined triumphantly⁷⁹.
 
"And what else does the fat woman say?"
 
"She says she won't say anything else—except to Mimi Winstock."
 
"Well, then, wake up Mimi as you wakened me, and send her to the servants' hall—wherever that is—I've never seen it myself!"
 
Eve shook her somewhat tousled head vigorously.
 
"Certainly not. I don't trust Miss Mimi Winstock—not one bit—and I'm not going to let those two meet until you've had a talk with the burglar."
 
"Me!" Mr. Prohack protested.
 
"Yes, you. Seeing that you don't want me to send for the police. Something has to be done, and somebody has to do it. And I never did trust that Mimi Winstock, and I'm very sorry she's gone to Charlie. That was a great mistake. However, it's got nothing to do with me." She shrugged⁸⁰ her agreeable shoulders. "But my necklace has got something to do with me."
 
Mr. Prohack thought "What would Lady Massulam do in such a crisis? And how would Lady Massulam look in a dressing-gown and her hair down? I shall never know." Meanwhile he liked Eve's demeanour—its vivacity⁸¹ and simplicity⁸². "I'm afraid I'm still in love with her," the strange fellow reflected, and said aloud: "You'd better kiss me. I shall have an awful headache if you don't." And Eve reluctantly kissed him, with the look of a martyr⁸³ on her face.
 
Within a few minutes Mr. Prohack had dismissed his wife, and was descending⁸⁴ the stairs in a dressing-gown which rivalled hers. The sight of him in the unknown world of the basement floor, as he searched unaided for the servants' hall, created an immense sensation,—far greater than he had anticipated. A nice young girl, whom he had never seen before and as to whom he knew nothing except that she was probably one of his menials, was so moved that she nearly had an accident with a tea-tray which she was carrying.
 
"What is your name?" Mr. Prohack benignly⁸⁵ asked.
 
"Selina, sir."
 
"Where are you going with that tea-tray and newspaper?"
 
"I was just taking it upstairs to Machin, sir. She's not feeling well enough to get up yet, sir."
 
Mr. Prohack comprehended the greatness of the height to which Machin had ascended⁸⁶. Machin, a parlourmaid, drinking tea in bed, and being served by a lesser⁸⁷ creature, who evidently regarded Machin as a person of high power and importance on earth! Mr. Prohack saw that he was unacquainted with the fundamental realities of life in Manchester Square.
 
"Well," said he. "You can get some more tea for Machin. Give me that." And he took the tray. "No, you can keep the newspaper."
 
The paper was The Daily Picture. As he held the tray with one hand and gave the paper back to Selina with the other, his eye caught the headlines: "West End Sensation. Mrs. Prohack's Pearls Pinched." He paled; but he was too proud a man to withdraw the paper again. No doubt The Daily Picture would reach him through the customary channels after Machin had done with it, accompanied by the usual justifications⁸⁸ about the newsboy being late; he could wait.
 
"Which is the servants' hall," said he. Selina's manner changed to positive alarm as she indicated, in the dark subterranean⁸⁹ corridor, the door that was locked on the prisoner. Not merely the presence of Mr. Prohack had thrilled the basement floor; there was a thrill greater even than that, and Mr. Prohack, by demanding the door of the servants' hall was intensifying⁹⁰ the thrill to the last degree. The key was on the outside of the door, which he unlocked. Within the electric light was still burning in the obscure dawn.
 
The prisoner, who sprang up from a chair and curtsied fearsomely at the astonishing spectacle of Mr. Prohack, was fat in a superlative degree, and her obesity⁹¹ gave her a middle-aged⁹² air to which she probably had no right by the almanac. She looked quite forty, and might well have been not more than thirty. She made a typical London figure of the nondescript industrial class. It is inadequate⁹³ to say that her shabby black-trimmed bonnet⁹⁴, her shabby sham-fur coat half hiding a large dubious⁹⁵ apron⁹⁶, her shabby frayed⁹⁷ black skirt, and her shabby, immense, amorphous⁹⁸ boots,—it is inadequate to say that these things seemed to have come immediately out of a tenth-rate pawnshop; the woman herself seemed to have come, all of a piece with her garments, out of a tenth-rate pawnshop; the entity⁹⁹ of her was at any rate homogeneous; it sounded no discord¹⁰⁰.
 
She did nothing so active as to weep, but tears, obeying the law of gravity, oozed¹⁰¹ out of her small eyes, and ran in zigzags¹⁰², unsummoned and unchecked, down her dark-red cheeks.
 
"Oh, sir!" she mumbled¹⁰³ in a wee, scarcely articulate voice. "I'm a respectable woman, so help me God!"
 
"You shall be respected," said Mr. Prohack. "Sit down and drink some of this tea and eat the bread-and-butter.... No! I don't want you to say anything just yet. No, nothing at all."
 
When she had got the tea into the cup, she poured it into the saucer and blew on it and began to drink loudly. After two sips¹⁰⁴ she plucked at a piece of bread-and-butter, conveyed it into her mouth, and before doing anything further to it, sirruped up some more tea. And in this way she went on. Her table manners convinced Mr. Prohack that her claim to respectability was authentic.
 
"And now," said Mr. Prohack, gazing through the curtained window at the blank wall that ended above him at the edge of the pavement, so as not to embarrass her, "will you tell me why you spent the night in my area?"
 
"Because some one locked the gate on me, sir, while I was hiding under the shed where the dustbins are."
 
"I quite see," said Mr. Prohack, "I quite see. But why did you go down into the area? Were you begging, or what?"
 
"Me begging, sir!" she exclaimed, and ceased to cry, fortified¹⁰⁵ by the tonic¹⁰⁶ of aroused pride.
 
"No, of course you weren't begging," said Mr. Prohack. "You may have given to beggars—"
 
"That I have, sir." She cried again.
 
"But you don't beg. I quite see. Then what?"
 
"It's no use me a-trying to tell you, sir. You won't believe me." Her voice was extraordinarily¹⁰⁷ thin and weak, and seldom achieved anything that could fairly be called pronunciation.
 
"I shall," said Mr. Prohack. "I'm a great believer. You try me. You'll see."
 
"It's like this. I was converted last night, and that's where the trouble began, if it's the last word I ever speak."
 
"Theology?" murmured Mr. Prohack, turning to look at her and marvelling¹⁰⁸ at the romantic quality of basements.
 
"There was a mission on at the Methodists' in Paddington Street, and in I went. Seems strange to me to be going into a Methodists', seeing as I'm so friendly with Mr. Milcher."
 
"Who is Mr. Milcher?"
 
"Milcher's the sexton at St. Nicodemus, sir. Or I should say sacristan. They call him sacristan instead of sexton because St. Nicodemus is High, as I daresay you know, sir, living so close."
 
Mr. Prohack was conscious of a slight internal shiver, which he could not explain, unless it might be due to a subconscious¹⁰⁹ premonition of unpleasantness to come.
 
"I know that I live close to St. Nicodemus," he replied. "Very close. Too close. But I did not know how High St. Nicodemus was. However, I'm interrupting you." He perceived with satisfaction that his gift of inspiring people with confidence was not failing him on this occasion.
 
"Well, sir, as I was saying, it might, as you might say, seem strange me popping like that into the Methodists', seeing what Milcher's views are; but my mother was a Methodist in Canonbury,—a great place for dissenters¹¹⁰, sir, North London, you know, sir, and they do say blood's thicker than water. So there I was, and the Mission a-going on, and as soon as ever I got inside that chapel¹¹¹ I knew I was done in. I never felt so all-overish in all my days, and before I knew where I was I had found salvation¹¹². And I was so happy, you wouldn't believe. I come out of that Methodists' as free like as if I was coming out of a hospital, and God knows I've been in a hospital often enough for my varicose veins¹¹³, in the legs, sir. You might almost have guessed I had 'em, sir, from the kind way you told me to sit down, sir. And I was just wondering how I should break it to Milcher, sir, because me passing St. Nicodemus made me think of him—not as I'm not always thinking of him—and I looked up at the clock—you know it's the only 'luminated church clock in the district, sir, and the clock was just on eleven, sir, and I waited for it to strike, sir, and it didn't strike. My feet was rooted to the spot, sir, but no, that clock didn't strike, and then all of a sudden it rushed over me about that young woman asking me all about the tower and the clock and telling me as her young man was so interested in church-towers and he wanted to go up, and would I lend her the keys of the tower-door because Milcher always gives me the bunch of church-keys to keep for him while he goes into the Horse and Groom¹¹⁴ public-house, sir, him not caring to take church keys into a public-house. He's rather particular, sir. They are, especially when they're sacristans. It rushed over me, and I says to myself, 'Bolsheviks,' and I thought I should have swounded, but I didn't."
 
Mr. Prohack had to make an effort in order to maintain his self-control, for the mumblings of the fat lady were producing in him the most singular and the most disturbing sensations.
 
"If there's any tea left in the pot," said he, "I think I'll have it."
 
"And welcome, sir," replied the fat lady. "But there's only one cup. But I have but hardly drunk out of it, sir."
 
Mr. Prohack first of all went to the door, transferred the key from the outside to the inside, and locked the door. Then he drank the dregs of the tea out of the sole cup; and seeing a packet of Mr. Brool's Gold Flake¹¹⁵ cigarettes on the mahogany sideboard, he ventured to help himself to one.
 
"Yes, sir," resumed the fat lady. "I nearly swounded, and I couldn't feel happy no more until I'd made a clean breast of it all to Milcher. And I was setting off for Milcher when it struck me all of a heap as I'd promised the young lady with the turned-up nose as I wouldn't say nothing about the keys to nobody. It was very awkward for me, sir, me being converted and anxious to do right, and not knowing which was right and which was wrong. But a promise is a promise whether you're converted or not—that I do hold. Anyhow I says to myself I must see Milcher and tell him the clock hadn't struck eleven, and I prayed as hard as I could for heavenly guidance, and I was just coming down the Square on my way to Milcher's when who should I see get out of a taxi and run into this house but that young lady and her young man. I said in my haste that was an answer to prayer, sir, but I'm not so sure now as I wasn't presuming too much. I could see there was something swanky a-going on here and I said to myself, 'That young lady's gone in. She'll come out again; she's one of the gues's, she is,' I said, 'and him too, and I'll wait till she does come out and then I'll catch her and have it out with her even if it means policemen.' And the area-gate being unfastened, I slipped down the area-steps, sir, with my eye on the front-door. And that was what did me. I had to sit down on the stone steps, sir, because of my varicose veins and then one of the servants comes in from the street, sir, and I more like dropped down the area-steps, sir, than walked, sir, and hid between two dustbins, and when the coast was clear I went up again and found gate locked and nothing doing. And it's as true as I'm standing¹¹⁶ here—sitting, I should say."
 
Mr. Prohack paused, collecting himself, determined¹¹⁷ to keep his nerve through everything. Then he said:
 
"When did the mysterious young lady borrow the keys from you?"
 
"Last night, sir, I mean the night before last."
 
"And where are the keys now?"
 
"Milcher's got 'em, sir. I lay he's up in the tower by this time, a-worrying over that clock. It'll be in the papers—you see if it isn't, sir."
 
"And he's got no idea that you ever lent the keys?"
 
"That he has not, sir. And the question is: must I tell him?"
 
"What exactly are the relations between you and Mr. Milcher?"
 
"Well, sir, he's a bit dotty about me, as you might say. And he's going to marry me. So he says, and I believe him."
 
And Mr. Prohack reflected, impressed by the wonder of existence:
 
"This woman too has charm for somebody, who looks on her as the most appetising morsel¹¹⁸ on earth."
 
"Now," he said aloud, "you are good enough to ask my opinion whether you ought to tell Mr. Milcher. My advice to you is: Don't. I applaud your conversion¹²⁰. But as you say, a promise is a promise—even if it's a naughty promise. You did wrong to promise. You will suffer for that, and don't think your conversion will save you from suffering, because it won't. Don't run away with the idea that conversion is a patent-medicine. It isn't. It's rather a queer thing, very handy in some ways and very awkward in others, and you must use it with commonsense¹²¹ or you'll get both yourself and other people into trouble. As for the clock, it's stopping striking is only a coincidence, obviously. Abandon the word 'Bolshevik.' It's a very overworked word, and wants a long

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