was to take place
shortly. Occasionally she referred to her husband over a question of
days or dates. His watchful and attentive manner never varied. From the
very first I took a firm and rooted dislike to him, and I flatter myself
that my first judgments are usually fairly shrewd.

Presently Mrs. Inglethorp turned to give some instructions about letters
to Evelyn Howard, and her husband addressed me in his painstaking voice:

"Is soldiering your regular profession, Mr. Hastings?"

"No, before the war I was in Lloyd's."

"And you will return there after it is over?"

"Perhaps. Either that or a fresh start altogether."

Mary Cavendish leant forward.

"What would you really choose as a profession, if you could just consult
your inclination?"

"Well, that depends."

"No secret hobby?" she asked. "Tell me--you're drawn to something? Every
one is--usually something absurd."

"You'll laugh at me."

She smiled.

"Perhaps."

"Well, I've always had a secret hankering to be a detective!"

"The real thing--Scotland Yard? Or Sherlock Holmes?"

"Oh, Sherlock Holmes by all means. But really, seriously, I am awfully
drawn to it. I came across a man in Belgium once, a very famous
detective, and he quite inflamed me. He was a marvellous little fellow.
He used to say that all good detective work was a mere matter of method.
My system is based on his--though of course I have progressed rather
further. He was a funny little man, a great dandy, but wonderfully
clever."

"Like a good detective story myself," remarked Miss Howard. "Lots of
nonsense written, though. Criminal discovered in last chapter. Every one
dumbfounded. Real crime--you'd know at once."

"There have been a great number of undiscovered crimes," I argued.

"Don't mean the police, but the people that are right in it. The family.
You couldn't really hoodwink them. They'd know."

"Then," I said, much amused, "you think that if you were mixed up in a
crime, say a murder, you'd be able to spot the murderer right off?"

"Of course I should. Mightn't be able to prove it to a pack of lawyers.
But I'm certain I'd know. I'd feel it in my fingertips if he came near
me."

"It might be a 'she,'" I suggested.

"Might. But murder's a violent crime. Associate it more with a man."

"Not in a case of poisoning." Mrs. Cavendish's clear voice startled
me. "Dr. Bauerstein was saying yesterday that, owing to the general
ignorance of the more uncommon poisons among t