Just as he arrived at Mrs. Iggulden's a thought struck him--not heavily; only a light, reminding flick--and he stopped a minute to see what it had to say. It referred to his interview with Scotland Yard, some six weeks after Fenwick's first appearance. He could recall that in the course of his interview one of the younger officials spoke in an undertone to his chief; who thereon, after consideration, turned to the doctor and said, "Had not your man a panama hat? I understood you to say so;" and on receiving an affirmative reply, spoke again in an undertone to his subordinate to the effect, half-caught by Vereker, that "Alison's hat was black felt." Did he say by any chance Harrisson, not Alison? If so, might not that account for a rather forbidding or opposive attitude on the Yard's part? He remembered something of fictitious claimants coming forward, representing themselves as Harrisson--desperate bidders for a chance of the Klondyke gold. They might easily have supposed this man and his quenched memory another of the same sort. Evidently if investigation was not to suffer from overgrown suspicion, only young and guileless official instinct could be trusted--plain-clothes _ingenus_. Dr. Conrad laughed to himself over a particularly outrageous escapade of Sally's, who, when her mother said they always sent such very young chicks of constables to Glenmoira Road in the morning, impudently ascribed them to inspector's eggs, laid overnight. * * * * * "My pulse--feel it!" His Goody mother greeted the doctor with a feeble voice from inarticulate lips, and a wrist outstretched. She was being moribund; to pay him out for being behindhand. He skipped all interims, and said, with negligible inaccuracy, "It's only a quarter past." "Don't talk, but feel!" Her failing senses could indulge a little impatience; but it was like throwing ballast out of a balloon. She meant to be all the worse directly. Her son felt the outstretched wrist, and was relieved to find it normal--almost abnormally normal, just before lunch! But he had to pretend. A teaspoonful of brandy in half a glass of water, clearly! He knew she hated it, but she had better swallow it down. _That_ was right! And he would hurry Mrs. Iggulden with lunch. However, Mrs. Iggulden had been beforehand, having seen her good gentleman coming and the table all laid ready, so she got the steak on, only she knew there would something happen if too much hurry and sure enough she broke a decanter. We do not like the responsibility of punctuation in this sentence. "I thought you had forgotten me," quoth the revived Goody to her son, assisting her to lunch. But the excellent woman said _me_ (as if it was the name of somebody else, and spelt _M_ double _E_) with a compassionate moan.