“Don’t you think it would be a mistake to ask him in? It might somehow put him on his guard. . . . Yes, I know, I can make sure that he comes into your room without being asked. Leave that part to me, and stand by as soon as dinner’s over. We can go up into the passage by the billiard-room end.” Chapter XXI The Test Marryatt came and sat with them at dinner—a situation which called forth Reeves’ utmost powers of self-control. He was glad that Carmichael was there too; glad that he had not communicated to him the suspicions which he had just come to entertain. He could not help admiring the easy way in which Gordon managed to conceal _his_ suspicions, talking to Marryatt in his ordinary vein of rather pawky pleasantry. “Well, Marryatt, how was the collection?” was the first sample of it. “Normal, thank you. It’s fortunate that I don’t depend on it for my livelihood, or you would have to wait some time for that half-crown I owe you.” “And how was the choir on the top notes?” “There and thereabouts,” said Marryatt cautiously. “Do you know,” Carmichael put in, “there’s a passage in Longfellow’s ‘Village Blacksmith’ which has always seemed to me a curious example of amphibology. The blacksmith, if you remember, is said to go on Sunday to the church, where he ‘hears the parson pray and preach, he hears his daughter’s voice singing in the village choir.’ The context shows that it is the blacksmith’s daughter who is alluded to, but by the ordinary rules of grammar it ought to be the parson’s daughter. I’m not much of a church-goer myself——” “Marryatt,” continued Gordon, “do you have anthems often in church?” The word “anthems” made Reeves feel as if he had leapt a foot into the air. Marryatt, however, showed no traces of excitement. “Very rarely, I am thankful to say.” “And those, I suppose, are at Evensong, not at Mattins?” Reeves frowned slightly. This effort to introduce the significant words seemed to him painfully forced, and at the same time quite useless. It was not likely that Marryatt would connect the words on the “washing-list” with the cipher he had inadvertently sent to Brotherhood on the same sheet of paper. “No, not at Mattins. The _Te Deum_, I am afraid, exercises the capacities of my choir to their full limit.” “You just have them on big days, I suppose, like Harvest Festivals?” “That kind of thing. Really, Gordon, you seem very ecclesiastical this evening. Were you going to offer to sing in the choir or anything?” “No, my boy, not till you get some more comfortable hassocks.” “As a matter of fact, I have ordered some only lately. I have to go up to London to-morrow to see about them.” Reeves’ blood thrilled. Only a tiny corroboration, and yet enough to give him more confidence in his diagnosis of the “washing-list.” Only lately Marryatt had been ordering new hassocks—it all fitted in.