What? Out of what? Can't hear you. Out of print. What, the
encyclopaedia's out of print? Who is that speaking? Dr. Willoughby;
thanks.'
Macpherson rose as if he would go to the telephone, but instead (and
he acted so quietly that I did not notice what he was doing until the
thing was done), he picked up the sheet which he called his visiting
list, and walking quite without haste, held it in the glowing coals of
the fireplace until it disappeared in a flash of flame up the chimney.
I sprang to my feet indignant, but too late to make even a motion
outwards saving the sheet. Macpherson regarded us both with that
self-deprecatory smile which had several times lighted up his face.
'How dared you burn that sheet?' I demanded.
'Because, Monsieur Valmont, it did not belong to you; because you do
not belong to Scotland Yard; because you stole it; because you had no
right to it; and because you have no official standing in this
country. If it had been in Mr. Hale's possession I should not have
dared, as you put it, to destroy the sheet, but as this sheet was
abstracted from my master's premises by you, an entirely unauthorised
person, whom he would have been justified in shooting dead if he had
found you housebreaking and you had resisted him on his discovery, I
took the liberty of destroying the document.
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