“The person who took the necklace.”

“Well, of course I know that,” Eve spoke 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 Mi.  Prohack read on the paper: 

“Should like see you alone.”  The detective picked up the paper again.  Mr. Prohack laughed joyously 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 improvisation?  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 sinister avenues of speculation.  “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 apprenticeship?  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 liking 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 smothered?”

“But you’ve telephoned to Scotland Yard about it,” said Mr. Prohack.  “We can’t hush 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 quailed a little before that glance.