Punishment” or “The Brothers Karamazaroff” —­Tolstoi, whom they didn’t understand; and in art—­God save the mark!—­the Cubist school.  That is how my poor young friend, Randall, was trained to get the worst of the frothy scum of intelligent Oxford.  But even he sometimes winced at the pretentiousness of his mother and his aunts.  He was a clever fellow and his knowledge was based on sound foundations.  I need not say that the ladies were rather feared than loved in Wellingsford.

All this to explain why it was that when Marigold woke me from an afternoon nap with the information that Mrs. Holmes desired to see me, I scowled on him.

“Why didn’t you say I was dead?”

“I told Mrs. Holmes you were asleep, sir, and she said:  ’Will you be so kind as to wake him?’ So what could I do, sir?”

I have never met with an idiot so helpless in the presence of a woman.  He would have defended my slumbers before a charge of cavalry; but one elderly lady shoo’d him aside like a chicken.

Mrs. Holmes was shewn in, a tall, dark, thin, nervous woman wearing pince-nez and an austere sad-coloured garment.

She apologised for disturbing me.

“But,” she said, sitting down on the couch, “I am in such great trouble and I could think of no one but you to advise me.”  “What’s the matter?” I asked.

“It’s Randall.  He left the house the day before yesterday, without telling any of us good-bye, and he hasn’t written, and I don’t know what on earth has become of him.”

“Did he take any luggage?”

“Just a small suit-case.  He even packed it himself, a thing he has never done at home in his life before.”

This was news.  The proceedings were unlike Randall, who in his goings and comings loved the domestic brass-band.  To leave his home without valedictory music and vanish into the unknown, betokened some unusual perturbation of mind.

I asked whether she knew of any reason for such perturbation.

“He was greatly upset,” she replied, “by the stoppage of The Albemarle Review for which he did such fine work.”

I strove politely to hide my inability to condole and wagged my head sadly: 

“I’m afraid there was no room for it in a be-bombed and be-shrapnelled world.”

“I suppose the still small voice of reason would not be heard amid the din,” she sighed.  “And no other papers—­except the impossible ones—­would print Randall’s poems and articles.”

More news.  This time excellent news.  A publicist denied publicity is as useful as a German Field Marshal on a desert island.  I asked what The Albemarle died of.

“Practically all the staff deserted what Randall called the Cause and dribbled away into the army,” she replied mournfully.

As to what this precious Cause meant I did not enquire, having no wish to enter into an argument with the good lady which might have become exacerbated.  Besides, she would only have parroted Randall.  I had never yet detected her in the expression of an original idea.