Read "Tracked by a Tattoo" by Fergus Hume online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Topping this discovery came the return of Mrs. Boazoph with a candle and an apology. Her procedure was so exactly the same as that suggested by Fanks that Crate could not forbear from paying the tribute of an admiring chuckle to the perspicuity of his chief. Only in her action with the tablecloth did Mrs. Boazoph vary from the prescribed ritual.
"My regrets and apologies, sir," she said, addressing Fanks, with a side glance at the table; "but one of the servants -- an idle slut, whom I have now discharged -- turned off the gas at the meter by accident. I hope that you were not alarmed by the sudden darkness. Permit me to relight the burners."