Page:Chesterton - The Club of Queer Trades.djvu/142

The Club of Queer Trades provide them ourselves. They don't belong to Captain Fraser."

"What the deuce does all this mean?" I almost screamed. "Are you all in an infernal nightmare? Why should Mr. Shorter's bald head belong to Captain Fraser? How could it? What the deuce has Captain Fraser to do with the affair? What is the matter with him? You dined with him, Basil."

"No," said Grant, "I didn't."

"Didn't you go to Mrs. Thornton's dinner party?" I asked, staring. "Why not?"

"Well," said Basil, with a slow and singular smile, "the fact is I was detained by a visitor. I have him, as a point of fact, in my bedroom."

"In your bedroom?" I repeated; but my imagination had reached that point when he might have said in his coal-scuttle or his waistcoat-pocket.

Grant stepped to the door of an inner room, flung it open, and walked in. Then he came out again with the last of the bodily wonders of that wild night. He introduced into the 124