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vade-mecum, I call it—it's marked off in inches. Uncommonly handy companion at times. There's a sword inside and a compass in the head. Got it made specially. Anything more?”
    “Afraid not. Let's hear your version, Wimsey.”
    “Well, I think you've got most of the points. There are just one or two little contradictions. For instance, here's a man wears expensive gold-rimmed pince-nez and has had them long enough to be mended twice. Yet his teeth are not merely discoloured, but badly decayed and look as if he'd never cleaned them in his life. There are four molars missing on one side and three on the other and one front tooth broken right across. He's a man careful of his personal appearance, as witness his hair and his hands. What do you say to that?”
    “Oh, these self-made men of low origin don't think much about teeth, and are terrified of dentists.”
    “True; but one of the molars has a broken edge so rough that it had made a sore place on the tongue. Nothing's more painful. D'you mean to tell me a man would put up with that if he could afford to get the tooth filed?”
    “Well, people are queer. I've known servants endure agonies rather than step over a dentist's door-mat. How did you see that, Wimsey?”
    “Had a look inside; electric torch,” said Lord Peter. “Handy little gadget. Looks like a matchbox. Well—I daresay it's all right, but I just draw your attention to it. Second point: Gentleman with hair smellin' of Parma violet and manicured hands and all the rest of it, never washes inside his ears. Full of wax. Nasty.”
    “You've got me there, Wimsey; I never noticed it. Still—old bad habits die hard.”
    “Right oh! Put it down at that. Third point: Gentleman with the manicure and the brilliantine and all the rest of it suffers from fleas.”
    “By Jove, you're right! Flea-bites. It never occurred to me.”
    “No doubt about it, old son. The marks were faint and old, but unmistakable.”
    “Of course, now you mention it. Still, that might happen to anybody. I loosed a whopper in the best hotel in Lincoln the week before last. I hope it bit the next occupier!”
    “Oh, all these things might happen to anybody—separately. Fourth point: Gentleman who uses Parma violet for his hair, etc., etc., washes his body in strong carbolic soap—so strong that the smell hangs about twenty-four hours later.”
    “Carbolic to get rid of the fleas.”
    “I will say for you, Parker, you've an answer for everything. Fifth point: Carefully got-up gentleman, with manicured, though masticated, finger-nails, has filthy black toenails which look as if they hadn't been cut for years.”
    “All of a piece with habits as indicated.”
    “Yes, I know, but such habits! Now, sixth, and last point: This gentleman with the intermittently gentlemanly habits arrives in the middle of a pouring wet night, and apparently through the window, when he has already been twenty-four hours dead, and lies down quietly in Mr. Thipps's bath, unseasonably dressed in a pair of pince-nez. Not a hair on his head is ruffled—the hair has been cut to recently that there are quite a number of little short hairs stuck on his neck and the sides of the bath—and he has shaved so recently that there is a line of dried soap on his cheek—”
    “Wimsey!”
    “Wait a minute—and dried soap in his mouth .”
    Bunter got up and appeared suddenly at the detective's elbow, the respectful man-servant all over.
    “A little more brandy, sir?” he murmured.
    “Wimsey,” said Parker, “you are making me feel cold all over.” He emptied his glass—stared at it as though he were surprised to find it empty, set it down, got up, walked across to the bookcase, turned round, stood with his back against it and said:
    “Look here, Wimsey—you've been reading detective stories, you're talking nonsense.”
    “No, I ain't,” said Lord Peter, sleepily, “uncommon good incident for a detective story, though, what? Bunter, we'll write one, and you