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hair. Powerful, you know. What they call a forceful personality. The kind of man you’d get if a steamroller were turned into a human being.”
    â€œRather tiring?” suggested Bundle sympathetically.
    â€œFrightfully tiring, full of all the most depressing virtues like sobriety and punctuality. I don’t know which are the worst, powerful personalities or earnest politicians. I do so prefer the cheerful inefficient.”
    â€œA cheerful inefficient wouldn’t have been able to pay you the price you asked for this old mausoleum,” Bundle reminded him.
    Lord Caterham winced.
    â€œI wish you wouldn’t use that word, Bundle. We were just getting away from the subject.”
    â€œI don’t see why you’re so frightfully sensitive about it,” said Bundle. “After all, people must die somewhere.”
    â€œThey needn’t die in my house,” said Lord Caterham.
    â€œI don’t see why not. Lots of people have. Masses of stuffy old great-grandfathers and grandmothers.”
    â€œThat’s different,” said Lord Caterham. “Naturally I expect Brents to die here—they don’t count. But I do object to strangers. And I especially object to inquests. The thing will become a habit soon. This is the second. You remember all that fuss we had four years ago? For which, by the way, I hold George Lomax entirely to blame.”
    â€œAnd now you’re blaming poor old steamroller Coote. I’m sure he was quite as annoyed about it as anyone.”
    â€œVery inconsiderate,” said Lord Caterham obstinately. “People who are likely to do that sort of thing oughtn’t to be asked to stay. And you may say what you like, Bundle, I don’t like inquests. I never have and I never shall.”
    â€œWell, this wasn’t the same sort of thing as the last one,” said Bundle soothingly. “I mean, it wasn’t a murder.”
    â€œIt might have been—from the fuss that thickhead of an inspector made. He’s never got over that business four years ago. He thinks every death that takes place here must necessarily be a case of foul play fraught with grave political significance. You’ve no idea the fuss he made. I’ve been hearing about it from Tredwell. Tested everything imaginable for fingerprints. And of course they only found the dead man’s own. The clearest case imaginable—though whether it was suicide or accident is another matter.”
    â€œI met Gerry Wade once,” said Bundle. “He was a friend of Bill’s. You’d have liked him, Father. I never saw anyone more cheerfully inefficient than he was.”
    â€œI don’t like anyone who comes and dies in my house on purpose to annoy me,” said Lord Caterham obstinately.
    â€œBut I certainly can’t imagine anyone murdering him,” continued Bundle. “The idea’s absurd.”
    â€œOf course it is,” said Lord Caterham. “Or would be to anyone but an ass like Inspector Raglan.”
    â€œI daresay looking for fingerprints made him feel important,” said Bundle soothingly. “Anyway, they brought it in ‘Death by misadventure,’ didn’t they?”
    Lord Caterham acquiesced.
    â€œThey had to show some consideration for the sister’s feelings?”
    â€œWas there a sister. I didn’t know.”
    â€œHalf sister, I believe. She was much younger. Old Wade ran away with her mother—he was always doing that sort of thing. No woman appealed to him unless she belonged to another man.”
    â€œI’m glad there’s one bad habit you haven’t got,” said Bundle.
    â€œI’ve always led a very respectable God-fearing life,” said Lord Caterham. “It seems extraordinary, considering how little harm I do to anybody, that I can’t be let alone. If only—”
    He stopped as Bundle made a sudden excursion through the window.
    â€œMacDonald,”