Part 42 (1/2)

*So did I.' Sidney Grice ground his burnt toast into a powder and sprinkled it into his bowl of prune juice.

Far away and below us the doorbell rang.

*Molly has forgotten something.' He tossed his napkin onto the tablecloth.

*How do you know that?'

*Because I do what I am unable to persuade you to do a use my ears. She is answering the door in her heavy outdoor boots. Therefore she must be planning on going out for an essential supply.'

I listened but I could hear nothing until our maid began to mount the stairs to the first floor dining room.

*You have a caller, Sir, a gent.' Her red hair was escaping either side of her white starched cap. *He said he must see you on...' a She screwed up her face in an effort to remember a *a matter of the outmost importance.'

*Did he give you a card?'

*Yes Sir.' And, as my guardian had deduced, Molly had her outside boots on.

*Where is it?'

*In my pocket.'

*Why not on a tray? Never mind. Just give it to me.'

Molly held out the card and her employer s.n.a.t.c.hed it away.

*Mr Horatio Green.' He s.h.i.+vered. *What a revoltingly bucolic surname. Where is he now?'

*Outside, Sir. You told me to admit no one without your permission.'

Sidney Grice stood up. *Then show him to my study at once.' He untied his patch. *Idiotic girl. You never obey my instructions when I want you to.' He stood up, took a steely-blue gla.s.s eye from the velvet pouch in his waistcoat pocket, pulled his lids apart and pressed it into his right socket, checked his tie in the mantle mirror and pushed back his thick black hair with his hand. *You had better come too, March. All this moping about has made you even more irritable and irritating than usual.'

3.

The Visitor and Party Tricks I followed him down the stairs, his shoulder dipping jerkily with his left leg, and into his study. A plump middle-aged man in a navy blue coat and charcoal trousers was already seated to the right of the fireplace, his hand to his cheek. This was my usual chair but Molly would have never have dared allow him to sit in her employer's. The moment we appeared our visitor jumped up and grasped my guardian's hand.

*Mr Grice. It is such a thrill to meet you. I have read so much about you in the newspapers.'

*You will have been hard pressed to have found an accurate fact then,' Sidney Grice told him.

*And you must be Miss Middleton,' Mr Green compressed my hand in his. *I believe you helped Mr Grice solve the Ashby stabbing case.'

My guardian adjusted his eye.* She may have accompanied me on that case,' he said, *but I can a.s.sure you she was nothing but a hindrance. Ring for tea Miss Middleton.'

*I shall try my idiotic best.' I pulled the bell rope twice as the two of them sat facing each other and got myself an upright chair from the round central table.

*Go on then.' Mr Green flushed with excitement and Sidney Grice blinked.

*What?'

*Make a series of ingenious observations about me.'

My guardian stretched languidly. *I do not perform party tricks.' But our visitor leant forwards and urged, *Oh come on. Tell me something about myself.'

Sidney Grice waved a bored hand. *Apart from the fact that you are a pharmacist...'

Mr Green touched his cheek and asked, *How the blazes..? It is almost supernatural. Do I have faint stains of chemicals on my hands?' He scrutinised his fingers. *I cannot see any.'

*It is written on your calling card,' my guardian said. *Now if...'

*Well that is not much of a trick then, is it?' Mr Green said. *Do another one.'

*You are suffering with an earache,' Sidney Grice told him, *though not as much as I might wish.'

Mr Green stroked his left ear in confirmation. *I have been a martyr to it since my eardrum was burst by an earwig when I was fourteen.'

I laughed. *But surely the belief that earwigs burrow into one's ear is an old wives' tale?' And Mr Green became sorrowful. *I am living proof that is not.' He put his fingertips to his left temple. *But a child could have worked that out from the cotton wool in it. Say something cleverer.'

Sidney Grice scratched his head in exasperation. *How am I supposed to know what is or is not obvious to a man of your mean ac.u.men when everything about you is obvious to me? For instance, you are clearly a bachelor.'

Mr Green thought about this and said at last, *Very well. I give up. How did you work that one out?'

*Three reasons,' my guardian explained. *Firstly the b.u.t.ton st.i.tching on your waistcoat is at least four years out of style a five if you live in one of the better squares, which you do not a and no wife would allow her husband to be abroad so unfas.h.i.+onably attired. Secondly....'

*Yes but what if I choose to ignore sartorial trends and my wife is too meek to prevent me?'

Sidney Grice gave a clipped laugh. *Yet more proof that you are unmarried. You must have been reading the small-brained scribblings of Mr d.i.c.kens if you believe that such a thing as a meek wife exists outside the bindings of one of his tawdry novels. Secondly, you do not wear a wedding band a which many men do not a but since you are a Roman Catholic...'

*Can you smell incense on me?'

*I can smell something,' I said but both men ignored me.

*Your rosary is hanging out of your coat pocket,' Sidney Grice observed. *Thirdly and most conclusively you are such an insufferable man that no sane woman would ever consent to being your wife and an insane woman is barred by law from entering into the marriage contract.'

Mr Green clenched his jaw and half stood. His mouth worked itself into forming a reply but then he beamed and fell back laughing heartily. *Capital. Capital. Your rudeness is as famous as you are Mr Grice and now I shall be able to tell all my customers that I have been a recipient of it.'

*I can give you much more than that to report,' my guardian said. *I could discourse at length upon your imbecilic grin for example or...'

Mr Green blushed. *I can take a joke as well as any man but...'

*So how was your trip to the dentist?' I asked and my guardian glanced at me.

*But...' Mr Green said again.

*I can smell it on you,' I explained, *and you keep touching your right cheek.'