“Yes.”

“You tell him you have destroyed the letters.  He goes off.  Am I right?”

“Yes.”

“Before he is out of the house Miss Peters is giving her name at the front door.  Put yourself in Jones’ place.  What does he think?  He is suspicious.  He thinks there is some game on.  He skips upstairs again, waits until Miss Peters has gone into your room, then stands outside and listens.  How about that?”

“I do believe you are right.  He might quite easily have done that.”

“He did do exactly that.  I know it as though I had been there; in fact, it is highly probable I was there.  You say all this happened on the night we first met?  I remember coming downstairs that night—­I was going out to a vaudeville show—­and hearing voices in your room.  I remember it distinctly.  In all probability I nearly ran into Jones.”

“It does all seem to fit in, doesn’t it?”

“It’s a clear case.  There isn’t a flaw in it.  The only question is, can I, on the evidence, go to young Freddie and choke the scarab out of him?  On the whole, I think I had better take this note to Jones, as I promised Judson, and see whether I can’t work something through him.  Yes; that’s the best plan.  I’ll be starting at once.”

* * *

Perhaps the greatest hardship in being an invalid is the fact that people come and see you and keep your spirits up.  The Honorable Freddie Threepwood suffered extremely from this.  His was not a gregarious nature and it fatigued his limited brain powers to have to find conversation for his numerous visitors.  All he wanted was to be left alone to read the adventures of Gridley Quayle, and when tired of doing that to lie on his back and look at the ceiling and think of nothing.

It is your dynamic person, your energetic world’s worker, who chafes at being laid up with a sprained ankle.  The Honorable Freddie enjoyed it.  From boyhood up he had loved lying in bed; and now that fate had allowed him to do this without incurring rebuke he objected to having his reveries broken up by officious relations.

He spent his rare intervals of solitude in trying to decide in his mind which of his cousins, uncles and aunts was, all things considered, the greatest nuisance.  Sometimes he would give the palm to Colonel Horace Mant, who struck the soldierly note—­“I recollect in a hill campaign in the winter of the year ’93 giving my ankle the deuce of a twist.”  Anon the more spiritual attitude of the Bishop of Godalming seemed to annoy him more keenly.

Sometimes he would head the list with the name of his Cousin Percy—­Lord Stockheath—­who refused to talk of anything except his late breach-of-promise case and the effect the verdict had had on his old governor.  Freddie was in no mood just now to be sympathetic with others on their breach-of-promise cases.

As he lay in bed reading on Monday morning, the only flaw in his enjoyment of this unaccustomed solitude was the thought that presently the door was bound to open and some kind inquirer insinuate himself into the room.