all in an infernal nightmare? Why should Mr Shorter's bald head
belong to Captain Fraser? How could it? What the deuce has Captain
Fraser to do with the affair? What is the matter with him? You
dined with him, Basil."

"No," said Grant, "I didn't."

"Didn't you go to Mrs Thornton's dinner-party?" I asked, staring.
"Why not?"

"Well," said Basil, with a slow and singular smile, "the fact is I
was detained by a visitor. I have him, as a point of fact, in my
bedroom."

"In your bedroom?" I repeated; but my imagination had reached that
point when he might have said in his coal scuttle or his waistcoat
pocket.

Grant stepped to the door of an inner room, flung it open and
walked in. Then he came out again with the last of the bodily
wonders of that wild night. He introduced into the sitting-room,
in an apologetic manner, and by the nape of the neck, a limp
clergyman with a bald head, white whiskers and a plaid shawl.

"Sit down, gentlemen," cried Grant, striking his hands heartily.
"Sit down all of you and have a glass of wine. As you say, there is
no harm in it, and if Captain Fraser had simply dropped me a hint I
could have saved him from dropping a good sum of money. Not that
you would have liked that, eh?"