conviction that her cold apple tart had suffered diminution by at least a slice, since she had so much enjoyed it hot at lunch, failed to occupy her mind for long, for this matter had presented itself with a clamouring insistence that drowned all other voices. She had tried, when, at the conclusion of her supper, she had gone back to the garden-room, to immerse herself in a book, in an evening paper, in the portmanteau problem, in a jig-saw puzzle, and in Patience, but none of these supplied the stimulus to lead her mind away from Major Benjy’s evenings, or the narcotic to dull her unslumbering desire to solve a problem that was rapidly becoming one of the greater mysteries.
Her radiator made a seat in the window agreeably warm, and a chink in the curtains gave her a view of the Major’s lighted window. Even as she looked, the illumination was extinguished. She had expected this, as he had been at his diaries late—quite naughtily late—the evening before, so this would be a night of infant slumber for twelve hours or so.
Even as she looked, a chink of light came from his front door, which immediately enlarged itself into a full oblong. Then it went completely out. “He has opened the door, and has put out the hall-light,” whispered Miss Mapp to herself.... “He has gone out and shut the door.... (Perhaps he is going to post a letter.)... He has gone into Captain Puffin’s house without knocking. So he is expected.”
Miss Mapp did not at once guess that she held in her hand the key to the mystery. It was certainly Major Benjy’s night for going to bed early.... Then a fierce illumination beat on her brain. Had she not, so providentially, actually observed the Major cross the road,
