‘Could I go and consult —–?’ he mentioned a specialist.  ’He is a man of ideas.’

‘He is a man of the purest principles—­and an uncommonly hard hitter.’

’It is his purity I want.  My own mind is hereditarily lawless.  I want something not immoral, yet efficacious.  There was that parson, whom you say the woman’s cat nearly devoured.  Like Paul with beasts he fought the cat.  Now, I wonder if that injured man is not meditating some priestly revenge that would do our turn and get rid of Miss Blowser?’

Merton shook his head impatiently.  His own invention was busy, but to no avail.  Miss Blowser seemed impregnable.  Kutuzoff Hedzoff, the puss, stalked up to Logan and leaped on his knees.  Logan stroked him, Kutuzoff purred and blinked, Logan sought inspiration in his topaz eyes.  At last he spoke:  ’Will you leave this affair to me, Merton?  I think I have found out a way.’

‘What way?’

’That’s my secret.  You are so beastly moral, you might object.  One thing I may tell you—­it does not compromise the Honourable Company of Disentanglers.’

’You are not going to try any detective work; to find out if she is a woman with a past, with a husband living?  You are not going to put a live adder among the eels?  I daresay drysalters eat eels.  It is the reading of sensational novels that ruins our youth.’

’What a suspicious beggar you are.  Certainly I am neither a detective nor a murderer a la Montepin!

‘No practical jokes with the victuals?’

‘Of course not.’

‘No kidnapping Miss Blowser?’

‘Certainly no kidnapping—­Miss Blowser.’

’Now, honour bright, is your plan within the law?  No police-court publicity?’

‘No, the police will have no say or show in the matter; at least,’ said Logan, ’as far as my legal studies inform me, they won’t.  But I can take counsel’s opinion if you insist on it.’

‘Then you are sailing near the wind?’

‘Really I don’t think so:  not really what you call near.’

‘I am sorry for that unlucky Mrs. Gisborne,’ said Merton, musingly.  ’And with two such tempers as the cook’s and Mr. Fulton’s the match could not be a happy one.  Well, Logan, I suppose you won’t tell me what your game is?’

’Better not, I think, but, I assure you, honour is safe.  I am certain that nobody can say anything.  I rather expect to earn public gratitude, on the whole. You can’t appear in any way, nor the rest of us.  By-the-bye do you remember the address of the parson whose dog was hurt?’

‘I think I kept a cutting of the police case; it was amusing,’ said Merton, looking through a kind of album, and finding presently the record of the incident.