Chapter V

All this happened in Brockley, S.E. on one bright autumn morning whilst Kymott Crescent (exclusive of numbers 64 and 66) pursued its placid course. Whilst milkmen yelled in the streets and neat butcher's carts stood waiting at servants' entrances, whilst Mrs. Coyter practised most assiduously the pianoforte solo that was against her name in the programme of the evening, and Mr. Roderick Nape paced the concrete floor of his study delivering to an imaginary audience a monologue (specially written by a friend not unconnected with _The Lewisham Borough News_) entitled "The Murder of Fairleigh Grange."

That rehearsal will ever be remembered by Mr. Roderick Nape, because it was whilst he was in the middle of it that there came to him his First Case.

In this monologue, the character, a detective of supernatural perception, is engaged in hounding down a clever and ruthless criminal. Mr. Roderick Nape had got to the part where an "agony" in the _Morning Post_ had aroused the suspicion of the detective genius. Perhaps it would be best to give the extract.

"Can it be Hubert Wallingford? No, perish the thought!
Yet--come let me read the paper again (_takes newspaper cutting
from his pocket and reads_)--

'To whom it may concern: information regarding P.L. is anxiously
awaited by H.W.'

Can it be Hubert! (_sombrely_)--It would seem a voice from the
grave that says----"

"The gent from 66 wants to see you, sir."

Mr. Nape stopped short and faced the diminutive maid of all work.

"Is it a case? he asked severely.

"I shouldn't wonder, sir," replied the cheerful little girl.

It was the invariable question and answer, as invariable as Philip of Spain's morning inquiry in relation to Gibraltar--"Is it taken?"

"Show him in."

The greenhouse which an indulgent parent had converted into a study for the scientific investigations of crime, admitted of no extravagant furnishing. A big basket chair in which the detective might meditate, a genuine Persian rug where he might squat and smoke shag (it was birds-eye, really), a short bench littered with test tubes and Bunsen burners, these were the main features of Mr. Nape's laboratory.

Mr. Hal Tanneur was visibly impressed by the test tubes, and accepted the one chair the apartment boasted with the comforting thought that Mr. Nape might not be the silly young fool that people thought him. Happily Mr. Nape was no thought-reader.