"But can you blame me for
wondering where your servants've been all through this racket?"
"They sleep on the top floor, behind sound-proof doors," his hostess
explained complacently, "and have orders to answer only when I ring,
even if they should happen to hear anything. I've a passion for
privacy in my own home--another whim, if you like."
"It's nothing to me, I assure you," he protested. "Minding my own
business is one of the best little things I do."
"If that's so, why do you walk uninvited into strange bedrooms at all
hours, pretending to be a policeman, with a cock-and-bull yarn about a
burglar--"
"But there was a burglar!" P. Sybarite contended brightly. "You saw
him yourself."
"No."
"But--but you _did_ see him--later, on the stairs!"
Smiling, the woman shook her head. "I saw no burglar--merely a dear
friend. In short, if it interests you to know, I saw my husband."
"Madam!" P. Sybarite sat up with a shocked expression.
"Oh," said the woman lightly, "we're good enough for one another--he
and I. He deserved what he got when he married me. But that's not
saying I'm content to see him duck what's coming to him for to-night's
deviltry. In fact, I mean to get him before he gets me. Are you game
to lend me a hand?"
"Me, madam!" cried P. Sybarite in alarm. "Far be it from me to come
between husband and wife!"
"Don't be afraid: I'm not asking you to dabble your innocent hands in
a fellow-human's blood--merely to run an errand for me.
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