"Thanks," said Stanwood, handing it back empty. "Gosh, I needed that. I've had one hell of a time, Mike."
Mike, having satisfied the humane side of his nature, was now prepared to be stern.
"Well, you asked for it."
"Who's the little guy with the nose glasses?"
"Desborough Topping, your hostess's husband."
"He's been talking stamps to me," said Stanwood with a reminiscent shudder.
"Well, what did you think he would do? If you horn into a house pretending to be a stamp collector and that house contains another stamp collector, you must expect to be talked stamps at."
"It's the darnedest thing. I don't believe I ever met anyone before who collected stamps. I thought only sissies did. And now I don't seem to meet anyone who doesn't. Kind of a loony setup, don't you think?"
Mike was not to be diverted into an academic discussion of the looniness of the conditions prevailing at Beevor Castle.
"What the devil did you come here for? I told you to stay at the inn till you heard from me."
"Sure, I know. But I had a feeling that you weren't going to deliver. Seemed to me you had lost your grip. So when Spink came along with his proposition, I was ready to do business."
"How did you meet Spink?"
"He blew in just after you had left, and we got together. We had known each other before. We used to be buddies over on the other side. He was Father's butler."
"So he told me."
"Well, I gave him the low-down about the cable and the photographs and asked him if he had anything to suggest, and he said it was a pipe. All I had to do was to say I was this bozo Rossiter, and I was set. I would have the run of the joint, and we could fix up the photographs any time that suited me. Naturally I said Check, and he went to the phone and called Her Nibs up, and she told him to tell me to come along and join the gang."
"What did he say about the album?"
"Nothing much. Just that he wanted it."
"You bet he wanted it. There's a stamp in it worth fifteen hundred pounds."
"Gosh! Really?"
"Which belongs to Terry. Of course she can't prove it, and of course Spink, now that you've gone and butted in, can. What you've done, you poor mutt, is to chisel that unhappy child out of fifteen hundred smackers. A girl who has eaten your salt."
"I don't get this."
"I'll explain it in words of one syllable," said Mike, and proceeded to do so. When he had finished, it was plain that Stanwood was feeling the bitter twinges of remorse. You could see the iron twisting about in his soul.
"Why the hell didn't you wise me up about this before?" he said, aggrieved.
"How was I to know you were going to go haywire and come to the castle?"
"Let's get this straight. If Spink has this stamp old Shortlands won't be able to marry that cook of his."
"No."
"Spink will buy her with his gold."
"Yes."
Stanwood wagged his head disapprovingly.
"No nice cook ought to marry a man like Spink. Funny I never got on to him. I always thought him a swell guy. I used to go to his pantry, dying of thirst, and he would dish out the lifesaver. How was I to know he was a fiend in human shape? If a fellow's a fiend in human shape," said Stanwood, with a good deal of justice, "he ought to act like one. Well, it's pretty clear what your next move is, Mike, old man. Only rough stuff will meet the situation. You want to chuck all the lessons you learned at mother's knee into the ash can and get tough. You'll have to swipe that stamp."
"Yes, I thought of that. But it's locked up in a safe."
"Then bust the safe."
"How?"
"Why, get Augustus Robb to do it, of course."
Mike started. An awed look had come into his face; the sort of look which members of garrisons beleaguered by savages give one another when somebody says "Here come the United States Marines."
"Good Lord! I'd clean forgotten that Augustus used to be a burglar."
"It'll be pie to him."
"Did you bring him with you?"
"Sure."
"Stanwood, old man," said Mike in a quivering voice, "I take back all the things I said about you. Forget that I called you a dish-faced moron."
"You didn't."
"Well, I meant to. You may have started badly, but you've certainly come through nicely at the finish. Augustus Robb! Of course. The hour has produced the man. It always does. Excuse me a moment. I must go and tell the boys in the back room about this."
But as he reached the door it opened, and Terry came in, followed by Lord Shortlands.
"We couldn't wait any longer. We had to come and see if you had ... Oh, hullo, Stanwood."
"Hello, Terry. Hiya, Lord Shortlands."
Terry's eye was cold and reproachful.
"You've made a nice mess of things, Stanwood."
"Yay. Mike's been telling me. I'm sorry."
"Too late to be sorry now," said Lord Shortlands sepulchrally.
His despondency was so marked that Mike thought it only kind to do something to raise his spirits. The method he chose was to utter a piercing "Whoopee!" It caused Lord Shortlands to leap like a gaffed salmon and Terry to quiver all over.
"Good news," he said. "Tidings of great joy. The problem is solved."
"What!"
"I have everything taped out. It turns out, after all, to be extraordinarily simple. We bust the safe."
Terry closed her eyes. She seemed in pain.
"You see, Shorty. He always finds the way. We bust the safe."
Lord Shortlands was feeling unequal to the intellectual pressure of the conversation.
"Can you—er—bust safes?"
"Myself, no. But I have influential friends. We send for Augustus Robb."
"Augustus Robb?"
"Who is this mysterious Augustus Robb you're always talking about?" asked Terry.
"My man," said Stanwood. "He's downstairs with the rest of the help."
"And before he got converted at a revival meeting," said Mike, "he used to be a burglar."
Terry's face had lost its drawn look. It had become bright and animated.
"How absolutely marvellous! Was he a good burglar?"
"One of the very best. There was a time, he gave me to understand, when the name of Robb was one to conjure with in the underworld."
"Rather a good name for a burglar, Robb."
"I told him that myself, and I thought it very quick and clever of me. Very quick and clever of you, too. If you're as good as that, we shall have many a lively duel of wit over the fireside. According to Augustus, the same crack has been made by fifty-six other people, but I don't see that that matters. You and I can't expect to be the only ones in the world with minds like rapiers."
"But if he's got religion, he'll probably have a conscience."
"We shall be able to overcome it. He will see the justice of our cause, which, of course, sticks out like a sore thumb, and, apart from that, he's a snob. He will be quite incapable of resisting an earl's appeal. Have you a coronet, Shorty?"
"Eh? Coronet? Oh yes, somewhere about."
"Then stick it on when you're negotiating with him, with a rakish tilt over one eye, and I don't think we shall have any trouble."
But there was no time to secure this adventitious aid. He had scarcely finished speaking when a hearty fist banged on the door, a hearty voice cried "Hoy!", and the man whom the hour had produced appeared in person.