The Case of the Mother-in-Law of Pearl

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It was a bright afternoon after much rain and Doctor Eszterhazy decided to take the steam runabout on the fashionable three turns along the Motor Road in the great Private Park. He had put on his duster and was reaching for his cap when the day-porter came in.

“Yes, Lemkotch.”

“Sir Doctor, Housekeeper asks if you would be so graciously kind as to leave this here off at Weitmondl, in the Golden Hart, to be prepared,” and he set down a box upon the desk, bowed, and withdrew.

If the housekeeper’s master had been a boss butcher or an advocate of the Court of First Jurisdiction, he would probably have said, “What, damn it, does the woman think I am a messenger boy?” but as he was Engelebert Eszterhazy, Doctor of Medicine, Doctor of Jurispurdence, Doctor of Science, Doctor of Philosophy, and Doctor of Literature, he merely said, “Yes, of course.” He took up the box—it was a small one, inlaid, with part of the inlay missing and part about to be, evidently a sewing-box: and he put it in his pocket.

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