Gibbous House 103

The constable, face offering an opinion on the bitters, addressed me thus:

'In passing? I have found him monomaniacal on the subject.'

The Professor scrambled from his chair and seized the nearmost bottle from the long sideboard:

'Shall we be having another?'

I waved the academic away and asked:

'How so, Constable?'

He lifted his crystal, but decided against a further sip and replaced the glass somewhat delicately over the ring it had left on the wood.

'Mr Allan made my acquaintance shortly after beginning his employment at the Mercury. From that time scarcely a day has gone by when he has not importuned me with the sole purpose of enquiring after the fate of one Heathfield Cadwallader. A party, I should add, of whom I have never heard, much less encountered, in any capacity.'

Miss Pardoner, in a more serious tone than earlier, asked:

'But why?'

Maccabi let out a sigh;the policeman considered him momentarily before answering the young woman:

'If I might be so bold as to suggest, subject of course to Mr Allan's disposition, that he be brought below. I think it might interest you all to hear his obsessions.'

'A capital idea!' I said, although, judging by the expressions of Maccabi and the dwarf, others did not share my enthusiasm for it. I instructed Maccabi to see to the transposition of Allan from his sick-bed to our presence and he made off to do so with more alacrity than good grace.

The doors closed behind him. The Professor, grasp of grammar recovered with his equanimity, asked:

'Forgive me, Sergeant, but what of your investigation? Poor Cullis?'

'Constable, Professor, Constable.' He was quick to assert his true status, but a thin smile showed he was not above the implied flattery. 'It proceeds, sir, it proceeds.'

I caught Miss Pardoner's eye and became convinced she shared my own opinion that the great Detective was no more nor less than a humbug.

I confess that I myself started, as the doors opened wide with a clatter. It seemed that Maccabi had arranged Allan's arrival with more care for despatch than safety. Mrs Gonderthwaite's offspring entered bearing the reporter in the manner of a litter, in as much as, in the absence of same, one brother's hairy paws were clamped around poor Allan's shins whilst the other had a firm grip on his upper arms. He made a sorry litter, however, for he sagged quite dramatically at the middle. The brothers, without malevolence, but with little care, deposited him in a chair at the policeman's right hand. Allan looked a little pale, but he must have been in better health than he looked, for he drained Turner's glass of its bitters and his grimacing worsened hardly at all.