He can scarcely come though till the Beaumonts' dinner is over."
For I do not know how many hours we stood there calmly in the darkness. By the time those hours were over I had thoroughly made up my mind that the same thing had happened which had happened long ago on the bench of a British Court of Justice. Basil Grant had gone mad. I could imagine no other explanation of the facts, with the portly, purple-faced old country gentleman flung there strangled on the floor like a bundle of wood.
After about four hours a lean figure in evening dress rushed into
the court. A glimpse of gaslight showed the red moustache and white
face of Jasper Drummond.
"Mr Grant," he said blankly, "the thing is incredible. You were
right; but what did you mean? All through this dinner-party, where
dukes and duchesses and editors of Quarterlies had come especially
to hear him, that extraordinary Wimpole kept perfectly silent. He
didn't say a funny thing. He didn't say anything at all. What does
it mean?"
Grant pointed to the portly old gentleman on the ground.
"That is what it means," he said.
Drummond, on observing a fat gentleman lying so calmly about the
place, jumped back, as from a mouse.
"What?" he said weakly, ". . . what?"
Basil bent suddenly down and tore a paper out of Sir Walter's
breastpocket, a paper which the baronet, even in his hampered
state, seemed to make some effort to retain.
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