"What is the mood?" said Hamilton innocently. "Indigestion?"
The girl laughed.
"Let's have a little light on the subject," said Bones. "Switch on the
expensive old electricity, Ham."
"Oh, no," said the girl quickly. "I don't think so. If you saw the
picture under the light, you'd probably think it wasn't good enough,
and then I should have made my journey in vain. Spare me that, Mr.
Tibbetts!"
Mr. Tibbetts giggled. At that moment the Being re-appeared.
Marguerite Whitland, chief and only stenographer to the firm of Schemes
Limited, and Bones beckoned her.
"Just cast your eye over this, young miss," he said. "What do you
think of it?"
The girl came round the group, looked at the picture, and nodded.
"Very nice," she said, and then she looked at the girl.
"Selling it for a charity," said Bones carelessly. "Some silly old
josser will put it up in his drawing-room, I suppose. You know, Ham,
dear old thing, I never can understand this hero-worship business. And
now, my young and philanthropic collector, what do you want me to do?
Give you permission? It is given."
"I want you to give me your autograph. Sign down there,"--she pointed
to a little space beneath the picture--"and just let me sell it for
what I can get."
"With all the pleasure in life," said Bones.
He picked up his long plumed pen and splashed his characteristic
signature in the space indicated.
And then Miss Marguerite Whitland did a serious thing, an amazingly
audacious thing, a thing which filled Bones's heart with horror and
dismay.
Before Bones could lift the blotting pad, her forefinger had dropped
upon the signature and had been drawn across, leaving nothing more than
an indecipherable smudge.
"My dear old typewriter!" gasped Bones. "My dear old miss! Confound
it all! Hang it all, I say! Dear old thing!"
"You can leave this picture, madam----"
"Miss," murmured Bones from force of habit. Even in his agitation he
could not resist the temptation to interrupt.
"You can leave this picture, Miss Stegg," said the girl coolly. "Mr.
Tibbetts wants to add it to his collection."
Miss Stegg said nothing.
She had risen to her feet, her eyes fixed on the girl's face, and, with
no word of protest or explanation, she turned and walked swiftly from
the office. Hamilton opened the door, noting the temporary suspension
of the undulatory motion.
When she had gone, they looked at one another, or, rather, they looked
at the girl, who, for her part, was examining the photograph. She took
a little knife from the desk before Bones and inserted it into the
thick cardboard mount, and ripped off one of the layers of cardboard.
And so Bones's photograph was exposed, shorn of all mounting. But,
what was more important, beneath his photograph was a cheque on the
Third National Bank, which was a blank cheque and bearing Bones's
undeniable signature in the bottom right-hand corner--the signature was
decipherable through the smudge.