said I.

I did not remind him that he had made a speech which sent cold shivers
down the spine of our young Apollo; that, in a fine rhetorical
flourish--dear old fox-hunting ignoramus--he declared that the winner
of the Newdigate carried the bays of the Laureate in his knapsack; that
Randall, white-lipped with horror, murmured to Betty Fairfax, his
neighbour at the table: "My God! The Poet-Laureate's unhallowed grave!
I must burn the knapsack and take to a hod!" It was too tragical a
conversation for light allusion.

"The poor dear child--Edith and I have sized it up--was all over him
that evening."

"What more youthfully natural," said I, "than that she should carry off
the hero of the occasion--her childhood's playfellow?"

"All sorts of apparently insignificant details, Duncan, taken
together--especially if they fit in--very often make up a whole case
for prosecution."

"You're a Chairman of Quarter Sessions," I admitted, "and so you ought
to know."

"I know this," said he, "that Holmes only spent part of that Christmas
vacation with his mother, and went off somewhere or the other early in
January." I cudgelled back my memory into confirmation of his
statement. To remember trivial incidents before the war takes a lot of
cudgelling. Yes. I distinctly recollected the young man's telling me
that Oxford being an intellectual hothouse and Wellingsford an
intellectual Arabia Petrea, he was compelled, for the sake of his
mental health, to find a period of repose in the intellectual Nature of
London. I mentioned this to Sir Anthony.

"Yet," I said, "I don't think he had anything to do with it."

"Why?"

"It would have been far too much moral exertion--"

"You call it moral?" Sir Anthony burst out angrily.

I pacified him with an analysis, from my point of view, of Randall's
character. Centripetal forces were too strong for the young man. I
dissertated on his amours with Phyllis Gedge.

"No, my dear old friend," said I, in conclusion, "I don't think it was
Randall Holmes."

Sir Anthony rose and shook his fist in my face. As I knew he meant me
no bodily harm, I did not blench.

"Who was it, then?"

"Althea," said I, "often used to stay in town with your sister. Lady
Greatorex has a wide circle of acquaintances. Do you know anything of
the men Althea used to meet at her house?"

"Of course I don't," replied Sir Anthony. Then he sat down again with a
gesture of despair. "After all, what does it matter? Per