Page:Bailey - Call Mr Fortune (Dutton, 1921).djvu/241

230 be able to give him some information on one or two points."

"I? God bless me, you know all that I know. Where is he, then, if he wants me?"

And Reggie came. "Have you been waitin'?" he said, with his airiest manner. "So sorry. Things are really rollin' up, you know. New facts by every post. Well, well." He dropped into a chair and blinked at the party. "What are we all doin' here? Oh, ah! I remember." He smiled and nodded at Kimball. "It was that fellow I wanted to ask you about."

Kimball, as was natural, did not relish this sort of thing. "I understood you had something important on hand. I've no time to waste."

"Why, it's so jolly hard to understand what's important and what isn't, don't you know? But it all comes out in the end."

"You think so, do you? This is the coal affair?"

"I wouldn't say that," Reggie answered thoughtfully. "No, I wouldn't say that. After all, the Coal Ramp isn't the only pebble on the beach."

"Then why the devil do you bother me?" Kimball cried.

Reggie sat up suddenly. "Because this is something you must know." He rearranged his coat and slid down into the chair again, and drawled out what he had to say. "Some time the end of last year—point of fact—last December—bein' quite precise,