"Have you? You must know, Graham, that there are frequently occasions on which I have nothing whatever to talk about, so I fill up the blanks with what I may call padding. I say this, because I don't want you to misunderstand the situation. This morning he lunched at the same crib I did. Directly he came in I saw that he was below par; so I said--I always am a sympathetic soul--'I do hope, Graham, you won't forget to let me have an invitation to your funeral--and, in the meantime, perhaps you'll let me know of what it is you're dying?' Now, he's not one of those men who wear their hearts upon their sleeves for daws to peck at--you know the quotation, and if you don't, I do; and it was some time before I could extract a word from him, even edgeways. But at last he put down his knife and fork with a clatter--it was distinctly with a clatter--and he observed, 'Martyn, I've been misbehaving myself.' I was not surprised, and I told him so. 'I'm in a deuce of a state of mind because I've been insulting a lady.' 'That's nothing!' I replied. 'I'm always insulting a lady.'--I may explain that when I made that remark, Ella, you were the lady I had in my mind's eye. At this point I would pause to inquire why, Miss Brodie, you did not take me into your confidence yesterday afternoon?" "I did." "You did not." "I did." "You told me about the lunatic lady, because, I suppose, you could not help it--since you were caught in the act--but you said nothing about a lunatic gentleman." He wagged his finger portentously. "Don't think you deceive me, Madge Brodie--I smell a rat, and one of considerable size." "Jack, do go on." This was Ella. "I will go on--in my own way. If you bustle me, I'll keep going on for ever. Don't I tell you this is my show? Do you want to queer it? Well, as I was about to observe--when I was interrupted--Graham started spinning a yarn about how he had forced his way into a house, in which there was a young woman all alone, by herself, and, so far as I could make out, gone on awful. 'May I ask,' I said, beginning to think that his yarn smelt somewhat fishy, 'what house this was?' 'The place,' he replied, as cool as a cucumber, 'is called Clover Cottage.' 'What's that!' I cried--I almost jumped out of my chair. 'I say that the place is called Clover Cottage.' I had to hold on to the hair of my head with both my hands. 'And whereabouts may Clover Cottage be?' 'On Wandsworth Common.' When he said that, as calmly as if he were asking me to pass the salt, I collapsed. I daresay he thought that I'd gone mad." "I began to wonder." This was Graham.