chuckle.

Lucky!

"Wish I had been out of town," I said gloomily. "It's a ghastly affair."

"Get out! Ghastly!" he ejaculated with scorn. "Nothing's ghastly to a
journalist, so long as it's good copy! You ought to have forgotten you
ever possessed any nerves, long ago. Must say you look a bit off color,
though. Have a drink?"

I declined with thanks. His idea of a drink in office hours, was, as I
knew, some vile whiskey fetched from the nearest "pub," diluted with
warm, flat soda, and innocent of ice. I'd wait till I got to Chelsea,
where I was bound to happen on something drinkable. As a good American,
Mary scored off the ordinary British housewife, who preserves a fixed
idea that ice is a sinful luxury, even during a spell of sultry summer
weather in London.

I drove from the office to Chelsea, and found Mary and Jim, with two or
three others, sitting in the garden. The house was one of the few
old-fashioned ones left in that suburb, redolent of many memories and
associations of witty and famous folk, from Nell Gwynn to Thomas
Carlyle; and Mary was quite proud of her garden, though it consisted
merely of a small lawn and some fine old trees that shut off the
neighboring houses.

"At last! You very bad boy. We expected you to tea," said Mary, as I
came down the steps of the little piazza outside the drawing-room
windows. "You don't mean to tell me you've been packing all this time?
Why, goodness, Maurice; you look worse than you did this morning! You
haven't been committing a murder, have you?"

"No, but I've been discovering one," I said lamely, as I dropped into a
wicker chair.

"A murder! How thrilling. Do tell us all about it," cried a pretty,
kittenish little woman whose name I did not know. Strange how some women
have an absolutely ghoulish taste for horrors!

"Give him a chance, Mrs. Vereker," interposed Jim hastily, with his
accustomed good nature. "He hasn't had a drink yet. Moselle cup,
Maurice, or a long peg?"

He brought me a tall tumbler of whiskey and soda, with ice clinking
deliciously in it; and I drank it and felt better.

"That's good," I remarked. "I haven't had anything since I breakfasted
with you,--forgot all about it till now. You see I happened to find the
poor chap--Cassavetti--when I ran up to say good-bye to him."

"Cassavetti!" cried Jim and Mary simultaneously, and Mary added: "Why,
that was the man who sat next us--next Anne--at dinner last night,
wasn't it? The man the old