Page:The Eyes of Max Carrados.pdf/289

Rh Max, and I know that deep down in your nature there is a passionate devotion to your country"

"Thank you, Louis," interrupted Carrados. "It is very nice to learn that. But I am really going to Kingsmouth because there's a man there—a curate—who has the second best private collection in Europe of autonomous coins of Thessaly."

For a few seconds Mr Carlyle looked his unutterable feelings. When he did speak it was with crushing deliberation.

"'Mrs Carrados,' I shall say—if ever there is a Mrs Carrados, Max—'Mrs Carrados, two things are necessary for your domestic happiness. In the first place, pack up your husband's tetradrachms in a brown-paper parcel and send them with your compliments to the British Museum. In the second, at the earliest possible opportunity, exact from him an oath that he will never touch another Greek coin as long as you both live.'"

"If ever there is a Mrs Carrados," was the quick retort, "I shall probably be independent of the consolation of Greek coins as, also, Louis, of the distraction of criminal investigation. In the meantime, what are you going to tell me about this case?"

Mr Carlyle at once became alert. He would have become absolutely professional had not Carrados tactfully obtruded the cigar-box. The digression, and the pleasant aroma that followed it, brought him back again to the merely human.

"It began, like a good many other cases, with an anonymous letter." He took a slip of paper from his pocket-book and handed it to Carrados. "Here is a copy."

"A copy!" The blind man ran his finger lightly along the lines and read aloud what he found there: