“But you are impossible!” Lucia cried. “Mr. Fortune, you see what I have to live with. This great bear!” She rumpled Geoffrey’s hair, and he made an exclamation of disgust and dashed her hand away. “But yes, Mr. Fortune, there is something new. This great animal, he desires not to take his father’s money. He writes to the lawyer to say he will not have it. But I forbid him. I say it is mad. Say if I am right, Mr. Fortune. What is the father’s it is the son’s. And Geoffrey, he has done nothing. But if he says he will not take it”--she made a fine theatrical gesture--“people will think it is because he is guilty. Is it not, Mr. Fortune?” “Why can’t you hold your tongue?” Geoffrey snarled at her, and turned to glare at Reggie. “There’s a pretty story for you. And what’s your beastly detective trade make of that?” “You know, Mrs. Charlecote, he’s always in such a hurry,” Reggie said confidentially. “Very disturbin’, isn’t it? You are difficult, Charlecote, old thing. Is your mind capable of receivin’ a thought? Yes. Well just suppose that I may have refused to act for you, because it would be better for the son and heir I shouldn’t be actin’ to his order.” “What the deuce do you mean?” “Well, I don’t quite know, you know. Do you? Is there anything you really want to tell me?” “I never want to see you again.” “Geoffrey!” his wife protested. “Oh, he’s not chatty this afternoon, Mrs. Charlecote. So sorry.” Reggie extricated himself from her offers of tea, and slid away. But he was annoyed. Against his will, the opinion of Dr. Newton forced itself into his mind. “An odd strain in Geoffrey, as it were something abnormal or thrawn, a certain violence of temperament.” It was so. Confound the oily old family doctor. Why did Geoffrey want to give up the money? Mere quixotry? A passionate desire to clear himself from the ill-fame of profiting by the old man’s death? Probably, oh, probably. But there was a feeling called remorse found in human nature. And why did the angel wife tell Geoffrey to keep the money? She ought to want her husband clear of ill-fame. You would expect a woman to care more about that than the man himself. And you would expect a woman to share her husband’s rage with the horrid man who had not stuck up for him. Instead of which the angel wife was very anxious to keep on good terms with that horrid man. Because he represented the police? Or why else? She had a dubious way with her, the angel wife. Reggie was worried--a rare state for him--and he took himself to his least sociable club. He was sitting there, glowering at a scientific American paper, when the voice of Lomas addressed him. “Care killed a cat, Reginald. Why so blue?” Reggie sat up. “Life is real, life is earnest, Lomas. And the grave is not the goal. That’s because of our filthy profession, which is always bothering the corpses. Come away. I am worried. I am going to worry you.”