“There’s something darned peculiar about this house, Hash. I slept in it the night I landed, and there was a fellow creeping around with an electric torch. And now this man, whom I know to be a crook, puts up a fake story to make me let him have it. What do you think, Hash?” “I’ll tell you what I think,” said Mr. Todhunter, alarmed. “I think I’m going straight out to buy a good watchdog.” “It’s a good idea.” “I don’t like these bad characters hanging about. I had a cousin in the pawnbroking line what was hit on the ’ead by a burglar with a antique vase. That’s what happened to him, all through hearing a noise in the night and coming down to see what it was.” “But what’s at the back of all this? What do you make of it?” “Ah, there you have me,” said Hash frankly. “But that don’t alter the fact that I’m going to get a dog.” “I should. Get something pretty fierce.” “I’ll get a dog,” said Hash solemnly, “that’ll feed on nails and bite his own mother.” CHAPTER SIXTEEN ASTONISHING STATEMENT OF HASH TODHUNTER § 1 The dinner to which Sam had been bidden that night was at the house of his old friend, Mr. Willoughby Braddock, in John Street, Mayfair, and at ten minutes to eight Mr. Braddock was fidgeting about the morning-room, interviewing his housekeeper, Mrs. Martha Lippett. His guests would be arriving at any moment, and for the last quarter of an hour, a-twitter with the nervousness of an anxious host, he had been popping about the place on a series of tours of inspection, as jumpy, to quote the words of Sleddon, his butler--whom, by leaping suddenly out from the dimly lit dining-room, he had caused to bite his tongue and nearly drop a tray of glasses--as an old hen. The general consensus of opinion below stairs was that Willoughby Braddock, in his capacity of master of the revels, was making a thorough pest of himself. “You are absolutely certain that everything is all right, Mrs. Lippett?” “Everything is quite all right, Master Willie,” replied the housekeeper equably. This redoubtable woman differed from her daughter Claire in being tall and thin and beaked like an eagle. One of the well-known Bromage family of Marshott-in-the-Dale, she had watched with complacent pride the Bromage nose developing in her sons and daughters, and it had always been a secret grief to her that Claire, her favourite, who inherited so much of her forceful and determined character, should have been the only one of her children to take nasally after the inferior, or Lippett, side of the house. Mr. Lippett had been an undistinguished man, hardly fit to mate with a Bromage and certainly not worthy to be resembled in appearance by the best of his daughters. “You’re sure there will be enough to eat?” “There will be ample to eat.”