“It’s as well to be armed. One never knows whom one may meet.”
“I am glad you didn’t shoot,” said Jimmy. “I’m a bit tired of being shot at.”
“I might easily have done so,” said Mr. Bateman.
“It would be dead against the law if you did,” said Jimmy. “You’ve got to make quite sure the beggar’s housebreaking, you know, before you pot at him. You mustn’t jump to conclusions. Otherwise you’d have to explain why you shot a guest on a perfectly innocent errand like mine.”
“By the way, what did you come down for?”
“I was hungry,” said Jimmy. “I rather fancied a dry biscuit.”
“There are some biscuits in a tin by your bed,” said Rupert Bateman.
He was staring at Jimmy very intently through his horn-rimmed spectacles.
“Ah! That’s where the staff work has gone wrong, old boy. There’s a tin there with ‘Biscuits for Starving Visitors’ on it. But when the starving visitor opened it—nothing inside. So I just toddled down to the dining room.”
And with a sweet, ingenuous smile Jimmy produced from his dressing-gown pocket a handful of biscuits.
There was a moment’s pause.
“And now I think I’ll toddle back to bed,” said Jimmy. “Night-night, Pongo.”
With an affectation of nonchalance, he mounted the staircase. Rupert Bateman followed him. At the doorway of his room, Jimmy paused as if to say good night once more.