Page:Chesterton - The Club of Queer Trades.djvu/99

Fall of a Great Reputation, purple-faced old country gentleman flung there strangled on the floor like a bundle of wood.

After about four hours a lean figure in evening dress rushed into the court. A glimpse of gaslight showed the red mustache and white face of Jasper Drummond.

"Mr. Grant," he said, blankly, "the thing is incredible. You were right; but what did you mean? All through this dinner-party, where dukes and duchesses and editors of quarterlies had come especially to hear him, that extraordinary Wimpole kept perfectly silent. He didn't say a funny thing. He didn't say anything at all. What does it mean?"

Grant pointed to the portly old gentleman on the ground.

"That is what it means," he said.

Drummond, on observing a fat gentleman lying so calmly about the place, jumped back as from a mouse.

"What?" he said, weakly, "… what?"

Basil bent suddenly down and tore a paper out of Sir Walter's breast-pocket, a paper 85