No one had noticed before that he hadn't turned up. This was a bit
disconcerting. I secretly thought him the most dangerous competitor.
He has a quiet, impish twinkle in his eye, and an unobtrusive way of
getting what he wants. However, the others scoffed at my fears.
Although they all talked a great deal about the amusing time they had
had, I could not gather that they had really accomplished much. Forbes
claimed to have seen Fred, and said he looked like a rotter. We drank
Kathleen's health a couple of times, and then the other three sat down
to dummy bridge. I slipped away to the Public Library, partly to get
some more of my antiquarian information about Wolverhampton, and partly
because I knew my absence would disquiet them.
I found the Library after some difficulty. In the large reading-room I
hunted up some books of reference, but to my disappointment Mr. Kent's
volume was out. Looking round for a place to sit, the first person I saw
was the Goblin, bent very busily over a book and making notes on a pad
of paper. I leaned over him.
“Hello, Goblin,” I whispered. “Getting ready for a First?”
He started, and tried to cover his volume with a newspaper, but I had
seen it. It was a cook book.
“That's a queer kind of fiction you're mulling over,” I remarked.
“I'm looking up a recipe for stuffed eggs,” said the Goblin, without a
quiver. “Our Common Room steward does them so poorly.”
“Well, don't let me interrupt you,” I said. I sat down in a corner of
the room with a volume of the Britannica. When I next looked up the
Goblin was gone.
As usual, I wasted my time with the encyclopedia. I got interested in
the articles on Wages, Warts, Weather, Wordsworth, and Worms. By the
time I got to Wolverhampton it was closing time. I did just seize the
information that the town was founded in 996 by Wulfruna, widow of the
Earl of Northampton. Then I had to leave.
I got back to the Boar about ten-thirty. The coffee-room was empty. The
landlord said that Whitney and Forbes were out, but that Mr. Carter had
gone upstairs.
Falstaff and I were rooming together, and when I went up I found him
reading in bed.
“Hello, Wulfruna!” he said, as I came in.
Evidently he, too, had been reading up some history. Just as I got into
bed he fell asleep and his book dropped to the floor with a thump. I
crept quietly across the room and picked it up. It was “Memorials of Old
Staffordshire,” by Philip Kent, F.S.A., the very copy that I had looked
for at the Library. I skimmed over it and then put it carefully back
by Falstaff's bedside. Was he on the antiquarian trail, too? I began to
realize that these rivals of mine would take some beating.
The next morning (Sunday) I found a note waiting for me on the breakfast
table. Three indignant Scorpions were weighing it, studying the
handwriting, and examining the stationery like three broken-hearted
detectives.
“It's not Kathleen's hand, but I'll swear it's the same notepaper,”
Forbes was saying.
Under a venomous gaze from all three I took the letter out of the room
before opening it. Forbes was right: it was the well-known Bancroft Road
notepaper. It ran thus: