ked up, an' all along o' my wu-wu-wicked tongue!"

CHAPTER VII

SOME SIDE ISSUES

Trenholme, rather interested than otherwise, did not blanch at mention
of Scotland Yard.

"Walk right in, Mr. Furneaux," he said; he had picked up a few tricks
of speech from Transatlantic brethren of the brush met at Julien's.
"Have you lunched?"

"Excellently," was the reply.

"Not in Roxton. I defy you to produce a cook in this village that
shall compare with our Eliza of the White Horse."

"Sir, my thoughts do not dwell on viands. True, I ate with a butler,
but I drank wine with a connoisseur. It was a Chateau Yquem of the
eighties."

"Then you should be in expansive mood. Before you demand with a scowl
why I shot Mr. Fenley you might tell me why the headquarters of the
London Police is named Scotland Yard."

"Because it was first housed in a street of that name near Trafalgar
Square. Scotland Yard was a palace at one time, built in a spirit of
mistaken hospitality for the reception of prominent Scots visiting
London. We entertained so many and so lavishly that 'Gang Sooth' has
become a proverb beyond the Tweed."

"There is virtue, I perceive, in a bottle of Chateau Yquem--or was it
two?"

"In one there is light, but two might produce fireworks. Now, sir, if
you have finished luncheon, kindly take me to your room and show me
the sketches you made this morning."

The artist raised an inquiring eyebrow.

"I have the highest respect for your profession in the abstract, but
it is new to find it dabbling in art criticism," he said.

"I assure you, Mr. Trenholme, that any drawings of yours made in the
neighborhood of The Towers before half past nine o'clock today will be
most valuable pieces of evidence--if nothing more."

Though Furneaux's manner was grave as an owl's, a certain gleam in his
eye gave the requisite sting to the concluding words. Trenholme, at
any other time, would have delighted in him, but dropped his bantering
air forthwith.

"I don't mind exhibiting my work," he said. "It will not be a novel
experience. Come this way."

Watched by two awe-stricken women from the passage leading to the
kitchen, the artist and his visitor ascended the stairs. Trenholme
walked straight to the easel, took off the drawing of Sylvia Manning
and the Aphrodite, placed it on the floor face to the wall, and
staged the sketch of the Elizabethan house. Furneaux screwed his
eyelids to secure a half light; then, making a