Bisker stood before the cook, sliding the palms of his hands together and leering.

“One of these days,” he said slowly, “you’regonna hold her while I cut ’erthroat-slowly. The old-”

Mrs. Parkes feigned indignation. She snatched up her cup, glared at Bisker, and said a little shrilly:

“You cut out that murder stuff and get along with your work. You’ll behavin ’ me in ‘Truth’ next, and then what’ll me husband say when he comes ’ome!”

“Stickyer teeth in,” Bisker replied, and swiftly retreated to the scullery, retreated backwards as though he were withdrawing from the presence of royalty.

From a box on a shelf he obtained a pencil of chalk and, again entering the kitchen, crossed it and passed through a doorway into a passage which led him to the public lounge. Here he switched on lights, passed through the lounge and so gained the passage which led to the bedrooms. Switching on more lights, he collected the footwear of the guests, marking on the soles the number of the room outside of which they awaited him. There were ten pairs of men’s boots, sixteen pairs of women’s shoes, and three pairs of children’s boots. All these he took back to the scullery, and then went on another journey to collect a pair of shoes from outside the door of the room occupied by Miss Eleanor Jade, the proprietress of Wideview Chalet.

Standing at a bench, Bisker began to work on the collected footwear. Every pair was of good quality, and every pair bespoke their utility for walking. This morning Bisker expected to find them dry, for the weather had been fine for the last four days. He was, therefore, easily provoked to profanity when he began work on a pair of men’s shoes, size eight and bearing on the sole the figure five.

“Mustabeen outwalkin ’ late last night, theblinkin ’ foreign German,” he complained. “More work-as though a man ’asn’tgot enough to do. Musta got ’emas wet as hell.”