Part 53 (1/2)

”There's n.o.body at the door,” said Eve. ”How you frightened me!”

”Marian,” said Mr. Prohack, fully inspired. ”Take my keys off there, will you, and go to my study and unlock the top right-hand drawer of the big desk. You'll find a blue paper at the top at the back. Bring it to me. I don't know which is the right key, but you'll soon see.”

And when Eve, eager with her important mission, had departed, Mr.

Prohack continued to the detective:

”Pretty good that, eh, for an improvisation? The key of that drawer isn't on that ring at all. And even if she does manage to open the drawer there's no blue paper in there at all. She'll be quite some time.”

The detective stared at Mr. Prohack in a way to reduce his facile self-satisfaction.

”What I wish to know from you, sir, personally, is whether you want this affair to be hushed up, or not.”

”Hushed up?” repeated Mr. Prohack, to whom the singular suggestion opened out new and sinister avenues of speculation. ”Why hushed up?”

”Most of the cases we deal with have to be hushed up sooner or later,”

answered the detective. ”I only wanted to know where I was.”

”How interesting your work must be,” observed Mr. Prohack, with quick sympathetic enthusiasm. ”I expect you love it. How did you get into it?

Did you serve an apprentices.h.i.+p? I've often wondered about you private detectives. It's a marvellous life.”

”I got into it through meeting a man in the Piccadilly Tube. As for liking it, I shouldn't like any work.”

”But some people love their work.”

”So I've heard,” said the detective sceptically. ”Then I take it you do want the matter smothered?”

”But you've telephoned to Scotland Yard about it,” said Mr. Prohack. ”We can't hush it up after that.”

”I told _them_,” replied the detective grimly, indicating with his head the whole world of the house. ”I told _them_ I was telephoning to Scotland Yard; but I wasn't. I was telephoning to our head-office. Then am I to take it you want to find out all you can, but you want it smothered?”

”Not at all. I have no reason for hus.h.i.+ng anything up.”

The detective gazed at him in a harsh, lower-middle-cla.s.s way, and Mr.

Prohack quailed a little before that glance.

”Will you please tell me where you bought the necklace?”

”I really forget. Somewhere in Bond Street.”

”Oh! I see,” said the detective. ”A necklace of forty-nine pearls, over half of them stated to be as big as peas, and it's slipped your memory where you bought it.” The detective yawned.

”And I'm afraid I haven't kept the receipt either,” said Mr. Prohack. ”I have an idea the firm went out of business soon after I bought the necklace. At least I seem to remember noticing the shop shut up and then opening again as something else.”

”No jeweller ever goes out of business in Bond Street,” said the detective, and yawned once more. ”Well, Mr. Prohack, I don't think I need trouble you any more to-night. If you or Mrs. Prohack will call at our head-office during the course of to-morrow you shall have our official report, and if anything really fresh should turn up I'll telephone you immediately. Good night, Mr. Prohack.” The man bowed rather awkwardly as he rose from the bed, and departed.

”That chap thinks there's something fishy between Eve and me,” reflected Mr. Prohack. ”I wonder whether there is!” But he was still in high spirits when Eve came back into the room.

”The sleuth-hound has fled,” said he. ”I must have given him something to think about.”