"Shifting the scenery, Tommy. Summoning the dead. Christ knows!" She yawned, to the peril of her agglutinative cigarette, but it held nobly. "It can't go on forever. I'm going to bed. By the time they've stopped I'll be asleep. So long! I'll come and look you up at Wormwood Scrubbs, never fear!" And the Virgin departed. "Not while you're still in Holloway," fired the puller of horses after her as he got up in his turn, and went out to get his candle for bed. A few moments later, when the Master of the House peeped out into the hall, he found all dark and deserted. He was pleased to think that his guests had suspected nothing. When everything was accomplished, and the little army of Scotland Yard men had fallen back upon its billets at the Lion (Humphrey de Bohun himself let them out at the front door, on tiptoe and with agonised whispers entreating caution. He himself had locked and bolted these doors); when, I say, all this affair was over Mr. Collop, first making quite sure that his seat was secure, took out a notebook, shot a blot of ink on to the re-established polar bear, and gave tongue. "Now, sir, fire away!" "What do you want me to do?" said de Bohun doubtfully. "Why, just give me details of what those coves 've been doing of," said Mr. Collop, relapsing into the vernacular. "You mean my guests?" said the Home Secretary rather stiffly. "That's right," said Mr. Collop cheerfully, "the toffs." "Well, really.... I haven't played the spy on my guests, Mr. Collop." "Oh, I'm looking after that," said Mr. Collop with another of his healthy winks. "Now, just you tell me all they did. I've got my first notes here. These three men what I've just met at dinner--and one of them's young McTaggart--I know 'im--they went down on their knees and they looked for it in that rug. Well and good. Then they got up, and they all swore they hadn't got it." "McTaggart was the last," said de Bohun, defending the interests of the family. "Ar? ... I didn't know that!" mused the modern Napoleon deeply. And he noted it down. "Well, what next?" "Why, to tell you the truth--the full truth, and I beg you to keep it private--my cousin, Lord Galton, has told me that he has seen the emerald--seen it with his own eyes--in the Professor's hands." "Ar!" said Mr. Collop again. "That's important, that is!" and down it went. "Saw it with 'is own eyes: where and 'ow?" "Wait a moment, Mr. Collop, wait a moment. Not long after, the Professor told me he had infallible scientific proof that it was in McTaggart's pocket. He showed me the very instrument wherewith he had been able to discover its presence through the thickness of the coat." "That's important too!" murmured Mr. Collop, intelligently noting it down. "An' what does McTaggart say?"