Chapter 6

The Eccentric Seclusion of the Old Lady

The conversation of Rupert Grant had two great elements of
interest--first, the long fantasias of detective deduction in
which he was engaged, and, second, his genuine romantic interest
in the life of London. His brother Basil said of him: "His
reasoning is particularly cold and clear, and invariably leads
him wrong. But his poetry comes in abruptly and leads him right."
Whether this was true of Rupert as a whole, or no, it was
certainly curiously supported by one story about him which I
think worth telling.

We were walking along a lonely terrace in Brompton together. The
street was full of that bright blue twilight which comes about
half past eight in summer, and which seems for the moment to be
not so much a coming of darkness as the turning on of a new azure
illuminator, as if the earth were lit suddenly by a sapphire sun.
In the cool blue the lemon tint of the lamps had already begun to
flame, and as Rupert and I passed them, Rupert talking excitedly,
one after another the pale sparks sprang out of the dusk. Rupert
was talking excitedly because he was trying to prove to me the
nine hundred and ninety-ninth of his amateur detective theories.
He would go about London, with this mad logic in his brain, seeing
a conspiracy in a cab accident, and a special providence in a
falling fusee. His suspicions at the moment were fixed upon an
unhappy milkman who walked in front of us. So arresting were the
incidents which afterwards overtook us that I am really afraid
that I have forgotten what were the main outlines of the milkman's
crime. I think it had something to do with the fact that he had
only one small can of milk to carry, and that of that he had left
the lid loose and walked so quickly that he spilled milk on the
pavement. This showed that he was not thinking of his small
burden, and this again showed that he anticipated some other than
lacteal business at the end of his walk, and this (taken in
conjunction with something about muddy boots) showed something
else that I have entirely forgotten. I am afraid that I derided
this detailed revelation unmercifully; and I am afraid that Rupert
Grant, who, though the best of fellows, had a good deal of the
sensitiveness of the artistic temperament, slightly resented my
derision. He endeavoured to take a whiff of his cigar, with the
placidity which he associated with his profession, but the cigar,
I think, was nearly bitten through.

"My dear fellow," he said acidly, "I'll bet you half a crown that
wherever that milkman comes to a real stop I'll find out something
curious."

"My resources are equal to that risk," I said, laughing. "Done."