“It’s a little surprising, you know,” he said very carefully, “if I may say so—­and considering what happened—­to hear you ...”

“Speaking of truth?  Not when you understand my position.  Not when you see where I stand.  That is what I am getting at.  That is what I am naturally anxious to make clear to you now that we have intermarried, now that you are my stepson-in-law.  You’re young, you know, you’re young, and you’re hard and fast.  Only years can give a mind tone—­mitigate the varnish of education.  I gather from this letter—­and your face—­that you are one of the party that participated in that little affair at Lagune’s.”

He stuck out a finger at a point he had just seen.  “By-the-bye!—­That accounts for Ethel,” he said.

Ethel rapped down the mustard on the table.  “It does,” she said, but not very loudly.

“But you had met before?” said Chaffery.

“At Whortley,” said Lewisham.

“I see,” said Chaffery.

“I was in—­I was one of those who arranged the exposure,” said Lewisham.  “And now you have raised the matter, I am bound to say—­”

“I knew,” interrupted Chaffery.  “But what a shock that was for Lagune!” He looked down at his toes for a moment with the corners of his mouth tucked in.  “The hand dodge wasn’t bad, you know,” he said, with a queer sidelong smile.

Lewisham was very busy for a moment trying to get this remark in focus.  “I don’t see it in the same light as you do,” he explained at last.

“Can’t get away from your moral bias, eh?—­Well, well.  We’ll go into all that.  But apart from its moral merits—­simply as an artistic trick—­it was not bad.”

“I don’t know much about tricks—­”

“So few who undertake exposures do.  You admit you never heard or thought of that before—­the bladder, I mean.  Yet it’s as obvious as tintacks that a medium who’s hampered at his hands will do all he can with his teeth, and what could be so self-evident as a bladder under one’s lappel?  What could be?  Yet I know psychic literature pretty well, and it’s never been suggested even!  Never.  It’s a perpetual surprise to me how many things are not thought of by investigators.  For one thing, they never count the odds against them, and that puts them wrong at the start.  Look at it!  I am by nature tricky.  I spend all my leisure standing or sitting about and thinking up or practising new little tricks, because it amuses me immensely to do so.  The whole thing amuses me.  Well—­what is the result of these meditations?  Take one thing:—­I know eight-and-forty ways of making raps—­of which at least ten are original.  Ten original ways of making raps.”  His manner was very impressive.  “And some of them simply tremendous raps.  There!”

A confirmatory rap exploded—­as it seemed between Lewisham and Chaffery.

“Eh?” said Chaffery.

The mantelpiece opened a dropping fire, and the table went off under Lewisham’s nose like a cracker.