"
"You will do no such thing, Professor," said I. "My evening has, on
the contrary, been particularly useful and instructive. I wouldn't have
missed it for the world."
And I drove off homewards, glad to be in my own company.
Here was an imbroglio! The missing husband found and, like most
missing husbands, found to be entirely undesirable. And Lola, obviously
imagining her summons to be from me, was at that moment speeding hither
as fast as the _Marechal Bugeaud_ could carry her. If I had discovered
Captain Vauvenarde instead of Anastasius I would have anathematised
him as the most meddlesome, crazy little marplot that ever looked like
Napoleon the Third. But as the credit of the discovery belonged to him
and not to me, I could only anathematise myself for my dilettanteism in
the capacity of a private inquiry agent.
I went to bed and slept badly. The ludicrous scenes of the evening
danced before my eyes; the smoke-filled, sordid room, the ignoble faces
round the table, the foolish hullaballoo, the collapse of Anastasius,
my melodramatic intervention, and the ironical courtesy of the fleshy
Captain Vauvenarde.
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