I don't think I did,' said Podgers, confused.

'You should have done so. Mr. Hale would have known how to make the
most of a point so vital.'

'Oh, come now, Valmont,' interrupted Hale, 'you're chaffing us. Plenty
of people take in all the papers!'

'I think not. Even clubs and hotels subscribe to the leading journals
only. You said _all_, I think, Podgers?'

'Well, _nearly_ all, sir.'

'But which is it? There's a vast difference.'

'He takes a good many, sir.'

'How many?'

'I don't just know, sir.'

'That's easily found out, Valmont,' cried Hale, with some impatience,
'if you think it really important.'

'I think it so important that I'm going back with Podgers myself. You
can take me into the house, I suppose, when you return?'

'Oh, yes, sir.'

'Coming back to these newspapers for a moment, Podgers. What is done
with them?'

'They are sold to the ragman, sir, once a week.'

'Who takes them from the study?'

'I do, sir.'

'Do they appear to have been read very carefully?'

'Well, no, sir; leastways, some of them seem never to have been
opened, or else folded up very carefully again.'

'Did you notice that extracts have been clipped from any of them?'

'No, sir.'

'Does Mr. Summertrees keep a scrapbook?'

'Not that I know of, sir.'

'Oh, the case is perfectly plain,' said I, leaning back in my chair,
and regarding the puzzled Hale with that cherubic expression of
self-satisfaction which I know is so annoying to him.

'_What's_ perfectly plain?' he demanded, more gruffly perhaps than
etiquette would have sanctioned.

'Summertrees is no coiner, nor is he linked with any band of coiners.'

'What is he, then?'

'Ah, that opens another avenue of enquiry. For all I know to the
contrary, he may be the most honest of men. On the surface it would
appear that he is a reasonably industrious tradesman in Tottenham
Court Road, who is anxious that there should be no visible connection
between a plebian employment and so aristocratic a residence as that
in Park Lane.'

At this point Spenser Hale gave expression to one of those rare
flashes of reason which are always an astonishment to his friends.

'That is nonsense, Monsieur Valmont,' he said, 'the man who is ashamed
of the connection between his business and his house is one who is
trying to get into Society, or else the women of his family are trying
it, as is usually the case. Now Summertrees has no family. He himself
goes nowhere, gives n