Page:The Enchanted Castle.djvu/245

 "What for?" was the boy's natural question.

"If you'll help me."

"Fire ahead."

"I'm a private inquiry," said Gerald.

"Tec? You don't look it."

"What's the good of being one if you look it?" Gerald asked impatiently, beginning on another bun. "That old chap on the floor above—he's wanted."

"Police?" asked the boy with fine carelessness.

"No—sorrowing relations."

"'Return to,'" said the boy; "'all forgotten and forgiven.' I see."

"And I've got to get him to them, somehow. Now, if you could go in and give him a message from someone who wanted to meet him on business"

"Hold on!" said the boy. "I know a trick worth two of that. You go in and see old Ugli. He'd give his ears to have the old boy out of the way for a day or two. They were saying so in our office only this morning."

"Let me think," said Gerald, laying down the last bun on his knee expressly to hold his head in his hands.

"Don't you forget to think about my five bob," said the boy.

Then there was a silence on the stairs, broken only by the cough of a clerk in That's office, and the clickety-clack of a typewriter in the office of Mr. U. W. Ugli.

Then Gerald rose up and finished the bun.