This evening she was full of vim.  She usually talks at the top of a very high and strident voice (I don’t know what they did with it at the convent), and I suddenly heard her screaming to the cabinet minister, ’Haven’t you heard that?  Oh, everybody’s quoting it in Fleet Street, aren’t they, Mr. Bryan?  But I suppose you never go to Fleet Street, Mr. Blank; it’s so important, isn’t it, for the government not to get mixed up with the press.  Well, I’ll tell it you.

’There was a young journalist Yid,
Of his foes of the press he got rid
  In ways brief and bright,
  For, at dead of the night,
He threw them downstairs, so he did.

It’s about the late editor of the Daily Haste and Mr. Gideon of the Weekly Fact.  No, I don’t know who’s responsible for it, but I believe it’s perfectly true.  They’re saying so everywhere now.  I believe that awful Pinkerton woman is going about saying she has conclusive evidence; it’s been revealed from the Beyond, I believe; I expect by poor Mr. Hobart himself.  No, I’m sure she didn’t make the limerick; she’s not a poet, only a novelist.  Perhaps it came from the Beyond, through planchette.  Anyhow, they say Mr. Gideon will be arrested on a murder charge very shortly, and that there’s no doubt he’s guilty.’

I leant across the table.

‘Who’s saying so, Aunt Cynthia?’ I asked her.

Aunt Cynthia hates being asked that about her stories.  Of course.  Every one does.  I do myself.

Aunt Cynthia looked at me with her childlike convent stare.

’My dear Laurie, how can I remember who says anything, with every one saying everything all the time?  Who?  Why, all sorts of people....  Aren’t they, Chloe?’

Chloe, who was showing a spoon and glass trick to the Monsignor, said, ‘Aren’t who what?’

’Isn’t every one saying that Arthur Gideon threw Oliver Hobart downstairs and killed him?’

’I expect so, dear.  Never heard of either of the gentlemen myself.  And did he?’

’Of course he did.  He’s a Jew, and he hated Hobart and his paper like poison.  The Fact’s so different, you know.  Every one’s clear he did it.  Mind you, I don’t blame him.  The Daily Haste is a vulgar Protestant rag.’

‘The Jew’s a dear friend of Laurie’s,’ put in Wycombe.  ’You’d better be careful, Aunt Cynthia.’

‘Oh, Laurie dear,’ my aunt cried, ’how tactless of me.  But, my dear boy, are you really friends with a Jew, and you a Christian priest?’

’I’m friends with Gideon.  He’s a Gentile by religion, by the way; an ordinary agnostic.  Aunt Cynthia, don’t go on spreading that nonsense, if you don’t mind.  You might contradict it if you hear it again.’

’Very well, dear.  I’ll say you have good reason to know it isn’t true.  I’ll say you’ve been told who did kill Mr. Hobart, only it was under the seal, so you can’t say.  Shall I?’