down to the morning's galleys when the portier summoned him to the telephone, a most unusual occurrence.
If he had been given a hundred guesses he wouldn't have hit on the voice which awaited him at the other end of the line. It was Mr. Marple. Would Grover dine with him that evening?
A characteristically American procedure—short, and cordial enough, but so business-like—out of the blue, into the blue, for Mr. Marple offered no explanation of his presence alone in the city, and as Grover recalled it, he loved his home and hated to travel.
When he found him at the hotel, Grover was shocked to see him so aged. The two year interval had seemed to effect the ravages of a decade. Mr. Marple was leaving the next day for Germany, where he was to try a cure.
"Why didn't Rhoda come with you?" asked Grover.
Mr. Marple smiled a little wryly. "Well, the truth is, the firm couldn't spare us both. You'd be surprised how she's taken hold. She's my right-hand man."
Grover was surprised, and a little disconcerted. He didn't want Rhoda to be an Amazon.
For the first time he was taking the old man in as an individual, rather than an institution of his childhood. It was curious to realize that he scarcely knew his own godfather.
After dinner they went up to Mr. Marple's private sitting-room, and while lighting a cigarette Grover's
