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THE INSTINCTIVE SENSE of simple hospitality which was the gift alike of Thorndyke and his devoted follower Polton, tended to impart a pleasant informality to what were essentially professional conferences. I noted it, not for the first time, when, on the evening following Miller's visit, we gathered round a cheerful fire to "hearken to the evidence" that my colleague had promised to expound to us. To an onlooker we should have seemed more like a party of cronies who had assembled for gossip and the exchange of "yarns" than a gathering of lawyers and police concerned with the detection and punishment of a capital crime.
Nevertheless, the attention of us all was concentrated on the business of the evening; and when Polton had provided for the comforts of all the guests, and, having placed on the table three wooden objects, one resembling an elongated brush-box and two shorter, upright boxes, had retired to the adjoining office (leaving the communicating door ajar) and the social preliminaries appeared to be getting unduly prolonged, Miller interposed with the blunt suggestion that Thorndyke "had better get on with it"; whereupon my colleague began his exposition without further preamble.