oored
with oilcloth, where a single gas-jet showed that on one side was the
business office and on the other the living-rooms. Mr. Loudon was at
supper, he was told, and he sent in his card. Almost at once the door
at the end on the left side was flung open and a large figure appeared
flourishing a napkin. "Come in, sir, come in," it cried. "I've just
finished a bite of meat. Very glad to see you. Here, Maggie, what
d'you mean by keeping the gentleman standing in that outer darkness?"

The room into which Dickson was ushered was small and bright, with a
red paper on the walls, a fire burning, and a big oil lamp in the
centre of a table. Clearly Mr. Loudon had no wife, for it was a
bachelor's den in every line of it. A cloth was laid on a corner of
the table, in which stood the remnants of a meal. Mr. Loudon seemed to
have been about to make a brew of punch, for a kettle simmered by the
fire, and lemons and sugar flanked a pot-bellied whisky decanter of the
type that used to be known as a "mason's mell."

The sight of the lawyer was a surprise to Dickson and dissipated his
notions of an aged and lethargic incompetent. Mr. Loudon was a
strongly built man who could not be a year over fifty. He had a ruddy
face, clean shaven except for a grizzled moustache; his grizzled hair
was thinning round the temples; but his skin was unwrinkled and his
eyes had all the vigour of youth. His tweed suit was well cut, and the
buff waistcoat with flaps and pockets and the plain leather watchguard
hinted at the sportsman, as did the half-dozen racing prints on the
wall. A pleasant high-coloured figure he made; his voice had the frank
ring due to much use out of doors; and his expression had the singular
candour which comes from grey eyes with large pupils and a narrow iris.

"Sit down, Mr. McCunn. Take the arm-chair by the fire. I've had a
wire from Glendonan and Speirs about you. I was just going to have a
glass of toddy--a grand thing for these uncertain April nights. You'll
join me? No? Well, you'll smoke anyway. There's cigars at your
elbow. Certainly, a pipe if you like. This is Liberty Hall."

Dickson found some difficulty in the part for which he had cast
himself. He had expected to condescend upon an elderly inept and give
him sharp instructions; instead he found himself faced with a jovial,
virile figure which certainly did not suggest incompetence. It has
been mentioned already that he had always great diffic