John forbore to ask further questions. This incoherent tale satisfied him that his cousin, if not delirious, was certainly on the borderland. He remembered the whole-heartedness with which Hugo had drowned his sorrows only a short while back in this very room, and he was satisfied that what the other needed was rest. "You'd better go to bed," he said. "I think I've fixed you up pretty well, but perhaps you had better see the doctor to-morrow." "Doc. Twist?" "No, not Doctor Twist," said John soothingly. "Doctor Bain, down in the village." "Something ought to be done about the man Twist," argued Hugo. "Somebody ought to pop it across him." "If I were you I'd just forget all about Twist. Put him right out of your mind." "But are we going to sit still and let perishers with waxed moustaches burgle the house whenever they feel inclined and not do a thing to bring their gray hairs in sorrow to the grave?" "I wouldn't worry about it, if I were you, I'd just go off and have a nice long sleep." Hugo raised his eyebrows, and, finding that the process caused exquisite agony to his wounded head, quickly lowered them again. He looked at John with cold disapproval, pained at this evidence of supineness in a member of a proud family. "Oh?" he said. "Well, bung--oh, then!" "Good night." "Give my love to the Alpha Separator and all the little Separators." "I will," said John. He accompanied his cousin down the stairs and out into the stable yard. Having watched him move away and feeling satisfied that he could reach the house without assistance, he felt in his pocket for the materials for the last smoke of the day, and was filling his pipe when Emily came round the corner. Emily was in great spirits. "Such larks!" said Emily. "One of those big nights. Burglars dashing to and fro, people falling over banks and butting their heads against trees, and everything bright and lively. But let me tell you something. A fellow like your cousin Hugo is no use whatever to a dog in any real emergency. He's not a force. A broken reed. You should have seen him. He...." "Stop that noise and get to bed," said John. "Right ho," said Emily. "You'll be coming soon, I suppose?" She charged up the stairs, glad to get to her basket after a busy evening. John lighted his pipe, and began to meditate. Usually he smoked the last pipe of the day to the accompaniment of thoughts about Pat, but now he found his mind turning to this extraordinary delusion of Hugo's that he had caught Doctor Twist, of Healthward Ho, burgling the house. John had never met Doctor Twist, but he knew that he was the proprietor of a flourishing health-cure establishment and assumed him to be a reputable citizen; and the idea that he had come all the way from Healthward Ho to burgle Rudge Hall was so bizarre that he could not imagine by what weird mental processes his cousin had been led to suppose that he had seen him. Why Doctor Twist, of all people? Why not the vicar or Chas. Bywater?