I was so full of my discovery that immediately after lunch I induced
Isabel to take our new friends round the home garden and show them
Charles's famous prize dahlias, while I proceeded myself to narrate
to Charles and Amelia my observations and my frustrated experiment.
"It _is_ a wig," Amelia assented. "_I_ spotted it at once. A very
good wig, too, and most artistically planted. Men don't notice these
things, though women do. It is creditable to you, Seymour, to have
succeeded in detecting it."
Charles was less complimentary. "You fool," he answered, with that
unpleasant frankness which is much too common with him. "Supposing
it _is_, why on earth should you try to knock it off and disclose
him? What good would it have done? If it _is_ a wig, and we spot it,
that's all that we need. We are put on our guard; we know with whom
we have now to deal. But you can't take a man up on a charge of
wig-wearing. The law doesn't interfere with it. Most respectable men
may sometimes wear wigs. Why, I knew a promoter who did, and also
the director of fourteen companies! What we have to do next is, wait
till he tries to cheat us, and then--pounce down upon him. Sooner
or later, you may be sure, his plans will reveal themselves."
So we concocted an excellent scheme to keep them under constant
observation, lest they should slip away again, as they did from the
island.
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