“Beg--beg pardon, sir, but did you--did you sorter strike me with a chair, sir?”
“Well, I, not knowing of course as it was you, sir, I sorter hit back. But have you got the thief, sir?”
“Indeed, yes, sir. There's one in the house. I was attacked here--right in this here very room. See here, sir, this bag! Just as I opened the window, he kem behind me, sir, threw it over my head, and tried to chloroform me, sir--you can smell it, sir.”
“Yes. All right,” said Hawkins, briefly, with what must have seemed to the man a strange lack of interest.
“You see, sir, whoever the rascal was, he must 'a' known as I intended going out this evening, sir, and that the house would be empty like. So in he sneaks from the roof, bag and all, and waits. And when I kem up the stairs, instead of going out, sir----”
“All right. That'll do. I understand,” muttered Hawkins. “No one threw a bag over you. It was a new--er--sort of burglar alarm--just had it put up to-day.”
“Burglar alarm!” cried the butler, staring at the remnants from which he was slowly extricating himself.
“Yes!” snapped Hawkins. “And don't stand there mumbling over it, William!”
“Here,” said the inventor, “is a--er--twenty-dollar note. You will immediately forget everything that has happened within the last half hour.”
“Yes, sir,” responded the butler, with a wide smile.
Hawkins led the way down-stairs. In the bathroom he paused to lave his much abused features; and by the time he had finished, my own features had had a chance to regain something like composure.
Once more in the library, which we had deserted some twenty minutes before, Hawkins threw himself rather limply into a chair.
“Well, well, well!” he muttered. “Now, who under the sun could have foreseen that?”
“William ought to be in the prize-ring,” continued the inventor sadly. “But he's a bright chap. He'll keep his mouth shut. Lucky--er--nobody else was in the house, wasn't it?”
“How are you going to account to Mrs. Hawkins for those black eyes?”
“Oh--we can say that we were boxing and you hit me. That's easy.”
“She'll believe that, too, Hawkins,” I said, gazing at the battered countenance. “You look more as if you'd had a collision with an express train.”
“Oh, she'll believe it, all right,” said the inventor cheerily. “For once--just for once, Griggs--something has happened which my better half won't be on to. You'll see I'm right. There isn't a clue.”