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.
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