Mr. Prohack

"There's n.o.body at the door," said Eve. "How you frightened me!"

"Marian," said Mr. Prohack, fully inspired. "Take my keys off there, will you, and go to my study and unlock the top right-hand drawer of the big desk. You'll find a blue paper at the top at the back. Bring it to me. I don't know which is the right key, but you'll soon see."

And when Eve, eager with her important mission, had departed, Mr.

Prohack continued to the detective:

"Pretty good that, eh, for an improvisation? The key of that drawer isn't on that ring at all. And even if she does manage to open the drawer there's no blue paper in there at all. She'll be quite some time."

The detective stared at Mr. Prohack in a way to reduce his facile self-satisfaction.

"What I wish to know from you, sir, personally, is whether you want this affair to be hushed up, or not."

"Hushed up?" repeated Mr. Prohack, to whom the singular suggestion opened out new and sinister avenues of speculation. "Why hushed up?"

"Most of the cases we deal with have to be hushed up sooner or later,"

answered the detective. "I only wanted to know where I was."

"How interesting your work must be," observed Mr. Prohack, with quick sympathetic enthusiasm. "I expect you love it. How did you get into it?

Did you serve an apprentices.h.i.+p? I've often wondered about you private detectives. It's a marvellous life."

"I got into it through meeting a man in the Piccadilly Tube. As for liking it, I shouldn't like any work."

"But some people love their work."

"So I've heard," said the detective sceptically. "Then I take it you do want the matter smothered?"

"But you've telephoned to Scotland Yard about it," said Mr. Prohack. "We can't hush it up after that."

"I told _them_," replied the detective grimly, indicating with his head the whole world of the house. "I told _them_ I was telephoning to Scotland Yard; but I wasn't. I was telephoning to our head-office. Then am I to take it you want to find out all you can, but you want it smothered?"

"Not at all. I have no reason for hus.h.i.+ng anything up."

The detective gazed at him in a harsh, lower-middle-cla.s.s way, and Mr.

Prohack quailed a little before that glance.

"Will you please tell me where you bought the necklace?"

"I really forget. Somewhere in Bond Street."

"Oh! I see," said the detective. "A necklace of forty-nine pearls, over half of them stated to be as big as peas, and it's slipped your memory where you bought it." The detective yawned.

"And I'm afraid I haven't kept the receipt either," said Mr. Prohack. "I have an idea the firm went out of business soon after I bought the necklace. At least I seem to remember noticing the shop shut up and then opening again as something else."

"No jeweller ever goes out of business in Bond Street," said the detective, and yawned once more. "Well, Mr. Prohack, I don't think I need trouble you any more to-night.

"That chap thinks there's something fishy between Eve and me," reflected Mr. Prohack. "I wonder whether there is!" But he was still in high spirits when Eve came back into the room.

"The sleuth-hound has fled," said he. "I must have given him something to think about."

"I've tried all the keys and none of them will fit," Eve complained.

"And yet you're always grumbling at me for not keeping my keys in order.

If you wanted to show him the blue paper why have you let him go?"

"My dear," said Mr. Prohack, "I didn't let him go. He did not consult me, but merely and totally went."

"And what is the blue paper?" Eve demanded.

"Well, supposing it was the receipt for what I paid for the pearls?"

"Oh! I see. But how would that help?"

"It wouldn't help," Mr. Prohack replied. "My broken b.u.t.terfly, you may as well know the worst. The sleuth-hound doesn't hold out much hope."

"Yes," said Eve. "And you seem delighted that I've lost my pearls! I know what it is. You think it will be a lesson for me, and you love people to have lessons. Why! Anybody might lose a necklace."

"True. s.h.i.+ps are wrecked, and necklaces are lost, and Nelson even lost his eye."

"And I'm sure it _was_ one of the servants."

"My child, you can be just as happy without a pearl necklace as with one. You really aren't a woman who cares for vulgar display. Moreover, in times like these, when society seems to be toppling over, what is a valuable necklace, except a source of worry? Felicity is not to be attained by the--"

Eve screamed.

"Arthur! If you go on like that I shall run straight out of the house and take cold in the Square."

"I will give you another necklace," Mr. Prohack answered this threat, and as her face did not immediately clear, he added: "And a better one."

"I don't want another one," said Eve. "I'd sooner be without one. I know it was all my own fault. But you're horrid, and I can't make you out, and I never could make you out. I never did know where I am with you. And I believe you're hiding something from me. I believe you picked up the necklace, and that's why you sent the detective away."

Mr. Prohack had to a.s.sume his serious voice which always carried conviction to Eve, and which he had never misused. "I haven't picked your necklace up. I haven't seen it. And I know nothing about it." Then he changed again. "And if you'll kindly step forward and kiss me good morning I'll try to s.n.a.t.c.h a few moments' unconsciousness."

IV

Mr. Prohack's life at this wonderful period of his career as a practising philosopher at grips with the great world seemed to be a series of violent awakenings. He was awakened, with even increased violence, at about eight o'clock the next--or rather the same--morning, and he would have been awakened earlier if the servants had got up earlier. The characteristic desire of the servants to rise early had, however, been enfeebled by the jolly vigils of the previous night. It was, of course, Eve who rushed in to him--n.o.body else would have dared.

She had hastily cast about her plumpness the transformed Chinese gown, which had the curious appearance of a survival from some former incarnation.

"Arthur!" she called, and positively shook the victim. "Arthur!"

Mr. Prohack looked at her, dazed by the electric light which she had ruthlessly turned on over his head.

"There's a woman been caught in the area. She's a fat woman, and she must have been there all night. The cook locked the area gate and the woman was too fat to climb over. Brool's put her in the servants' hall and fastened the door, and what do you think we ought to do first? Send for the police or telephone to Mr. Crewd--he's the detective you saw last night?"

"If she's been in the area all night you'd better put her to bed, and give her some hot brandy and water," said Mr. Prohack.

"Arthur, please, please, be serious!" Eve supplicated.

"I'm being as serious as a man can who has been disturbed in this pleasant fas.h.i.+on by a pretty woman," said Mr. Prohack attentively examining the ceiling. "You go and look after the fat lady. Supposing she died from exposure. There'd have to be an inquest. Do you wish to be mixed up in an inquest? What does she want? Whatever it is, give it her, and let her go, and wake me up next week. I feel I can sleep a bit."