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'That's just the trouble with me' Colonel Baigent confessed. 'She is my great-aunt, really. She lives in Little Swithun, right at the back of Dean's Close; and her name is on a brass plate a very hard name to pronounce, "Miss Lapenotiere, Dancing and Calisthenics" that's another hard word, but it means things you do with an elastic band to improve your figure.
The lights within a chemist's shop, shining through bottles of coloured water in its window, threw splashes of colour green, crimson, orange on the eager faces as they went by. Colonel Baigent rose half impatiently, drew down the blind, and, returning to his chair, sat alone with the ghosts. The waiter brought dessert a plateful of walnuts and dried figs.
And then, when the others made fun of you, you put the box under your arm, and said you were going to carry it home for me. And so you did, though it made you late for your books; and besides, our house was out of bounds, and you risked a thrashing for it. 'I wonder if I got it? murmured Colonel Baigent. 'I knew nothing about the school bounds at the time, or I should never have allowed you!
The very claim was an absurdity, every step in the great fraud was an absurdity, and every proceeding had some ridiculous absurdity to accompany it. It was not until the cross-examination of Baigent by Mr. Hawkins that the undoubted truth began to appear. "You are the first," said Baron Bramwell, "who has let daylight into the case."
The rest laughed; and when I began to cry for the ribbons were muddied they laughed still more. Do you remember? Colonel Baigent had not the faintest recollection of it. 'Ah! but it all happened. And you you were the only one that did not laugh. You picked up the box and wiped it with your handkerchief. You tried to wipe the ribbons, too; but that only made matters worse.
Colonel Baigent gazed after it, alone beneath the gas-lamp; for the few passengers who had alighted from his train had jostled past him and gone their ways, and his porter had turned back wearily into the station, where express and excursion trains had all day been running the Christmas traffic down to its last lees.
Miss Netta, pausing while she fumbled for the latchkey, explained that her aunt had a fancy to keep the blinds up, so that when the minster was lit for evensong she might watch the warm, painted windows without moving from her couch. Colonel Baigent, glancing at the pane towards which she waved a hand, caught one glimpse of the room within, and stood still, with a catch of his breath.
Outside the railway station Colonel Baigent handed his carpet-bag to the conductor of the hotel omnibus, and stood for a moment peering about in the dusk, as if to take his bearings. 'For The Dragon, sir? asked the conductor. 'The Dragon? Yes, certainly, echoed Colonel Baigent, aroused by the name from the beginnings of a brown study. 'So The Dragon is still standing, eh?
'O-o-oh! answered the child, and with a catch, as it were, and a thrill in the voice that astonished him. Her eyes, fixed on his, grew larger and rounder. She came a pace or two towards him on tiptoe, halted, clasped both hands over her dancing-shoes, and exclaimed, with a deeper thrill than before: 'You are Colonel Baigent! 'Eh? The colonel sat bolt upright.
'But isn't he coming with us? The child's face fell, and her voice was full of dismay. 'Oh! but you must! Aunt Louisa will cry her eyes out if you don't. And on Christmas Eve, too! Colonel Baigent looked at Miss Netta. 'I couldn't ask it I really couldn't, she murmured. He smiled. 'The hour is unconventional, to be sure.
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