“Hullo, mater.  What ho, uncle!  Back again at the old homestead, what?”

Beneath Lady Caroline’s aristocratic front agitation seemed to lurk.

“Reggie, where is Percy?”

“Old Boots?  I think he’s gone to the library.  I just decanted him out of the car.”

Lady Caroline turned to her brother.

“Let us go to the library, John.”

“All right.  All right.  All right,” said Lord Marshmoreton irritably.  Something appeared to have ruffled his calm.

Reggie drove on.  As he was strolling back after putting the car away he met Maud.

“Hullo, Maud, dear old thing.”

“Why, hullo, Reggie.  I was expecting you back last night.”

“Couldn’t get back last night.  Had to stick in town and rally round old Boots.  Couldn’t desert the old boy in his hour of trial.”  Reggie chuckled amusedly. “‘Hour of trial,’ is rather good, what?  What I mean to say is, that’s just what it was, don’t you know.”

“Why, what happened to Percy?”

“Do you mean to say you haven’t heard?  Of course not.  It wouldn’t have been in the morning papers.  Why, Percy punched a policeman.”

“Percy did what?”

“Slugged a slop.  Most dramatic thing.  Sloshed him in the midriff.  Absolutely.  The cross marks the spot where the tragedy occurred.”

Maud caught her breath.  Somehow, though she could not trace the connection, she felt that this extraordinary happening must be linked up with her escapade.  Then her sense of humour got the better of apprehension.  Her eyes twinkled delightedly.

“You don’t mean to say Percy did that?”

“Absolutely.  The human tiger, and what not.  Menace to Society and all that sort of thing.  No holding him.  For some unexplained reason the generous blood of the Belphers boiled over, and then—­zing.  They jerked him off to Vine Street.  Like the poem, don’t you know.  ‘And poor old Percy walked between with gyves upon his wrists.’  And this morning, bright and early, the beak parted him from ten quid.  You know, Maud, old thing, our duty stares us plainly in the eyeball.  We’ve got to train old Boots down to a reasonable weight and spring him on the National Sporting Club.  We’ve been letting a champion middleweight blush unseen under our very roof tree.”

Maud hesitated a moment.

“I suppose you don’t know,” she asked carelessly, “why he did it?  I mean, did he tell you anything?”

“Couldn’t get a word out of him.  Oysters garrulous and tombs chatty in comparison.  Absolutely.  All I know is that he popped one into the officer’s waistband.  What led up to it is more than I can tell you.  How would it be to stagger to the library and join the post-mortem?”

“The post-mortem?”

“Well, I met the mater and his lordship on their way to the library, and it looked to me very much as if the mater must have got hold of an evening paper on her journey from town.  When did she arrive?”