With an effort I mastered my impatience.

“Will you tell me where he is?  Or, if he’s gone, find out——­”

“I don’t think ’e’s gorn,” said Mr. Holly, looking round.  “I ’alf think——­There ’e is,” he cried, suddenly, nodding over my shoulder.  “That’s ’im on the stairs, with the lady in blue.”

Excitedly I swung round, to see my brother-in-law languidly descending the staircase, with Miss Childe by his side.

“Hullo,” he said.  “Do you mind not asking me why I’m here?”

“It’s not my practice,” said I, “to ask a question, the answer to which I already know.”  I turned to Mr. Holly and took out a one pound note.  “I’m much obliged for your trouble.  ’Not a bid after twenty-five pounds,’ I think you said.”  I handed him the note, which he accepted with protests of gratitude.  “You did better than you know,” I added.

“May I ask,” said Berry unsteadily, “if this gentleman and you are in collusion?”

“We were,” said I.  “At least, I instructed him to purchase some furniture for me.  Unfortunately we were outbid.  But it’s of no consequence.”

Berry raised his eyes to heaven and groaned/

“Subtraction,” he said, “is not my strongest point, but I make it eighty pounds.  Is that right?”

I nodded, and he turned to Miss Childe.

“That viper,” he said, “has stung the fool who feeds him to the tune of eighty pounds.  Shall I faint here or by the hat-stand?  Let’s be clear about it.  The moment I enter the swoon——­”

“Still, as long as it’s in the family——­” began Jill.

“Exactly,” said I.  “The main thing is, we’ve got it.  And when you’ve heard my tale——­”

“Eighty paper pounds,” said Berry.  “Can you beat it?”

“That’d only be about thirty-five before the War,” said Miss Childe in a shaking voice.

“Yes,” said I.  “Look at it that way.  And what’s thirty-five?  A bagatelle, brother, a bagatelle.  Now, if we were in Russia——­”

“Yes,” said Berry grimly, “and if we were in Patagonia, I suppose I should be up on the deal.  You can cut that bit.”

Miss Childe and Jill dissolved into peals of merriment.

“That’s right,” said Berry.  “Deride the destitute.  Mock at bereavement.  As for you,” he added, turning to Jill, “your visit to the Zoo is indefinitely postponed.  Other children shall feel sick in the monkey-house and be taken to smell the bears.  But you, never.”  He turned to Miss Childe and laid a hand on her arm.  “Shut your eyes, my dear, and repeat one of Alfred Austin’s odes.  This place is full of the ungodly.”

* * * * *

My determination to carry the tallboy chest to London in the Rolls met with stern opposition, but in the end I prevailed, and at six o’clock that evening it was safely housed in Mayfair.

To do him justice, Berry’s annoyance was considerably tempered by the strange story which I unfolded during a belated tea.