come and
look you up again.'

"'Fine,' he said, shaking my hand. 'Jolly nice of you.' Then he said,
'Did you go to the office for me, Hapgood?'

"'Just looked in,' I said offhandedly. 'Saw a clerk who said you weren't
down to-day, so I came along up.'

"He was doing some thinking, I could see that. He said, 'Jolly good of
you. I _am_ glad. You'll stay a bit, of course.' The girl had faded
away. He went a bit along the passage and called out, 'Effie, you can
scratch up a bit of lunch for Mr. Hapgood?'

"I suppose she said Yes. 'Lunch'll be on in about two minutes,' he came
back to me with. 'You're later than when you came up last time. Come
along in here.'

"Led me into the morning room and we sat down and pretended to talk.
Very poor pretence, I give you my word. Both of us manifestly straining
to do the brisk and hearty, and the two of us producing about as much
semblance of chatty interchange as a couple of victims waiting their
turn in a dentist's parlour. The door was open and I could hear some one
moving about laying the lunch. That was all I could hear (bar Sabre's
spasmodic jerks of speech) and I don't mind telling you I was a deal
more interested in what I could hear going on outside than in anything
we could put up between us. Or rather in what I couldn't hear going on
outside. No voices, none of those sounds, none of that sort of feeling
that tells you people are about the place. No, there was some mystery
knocking about the place somewhere, and it was on the other side of the
door, and that was where my attention was.

"Presently I heard the girl's voice outside, 'Lunch is ready.'

"We jumped up like two schoolboys released from detention and went along
in. More mystery. Lunch at Sabre's place was always a beautifully
conducted rite, as I was accustomed to it. Announced by two gongs,
warning and ready, to begin with, and here we'd been shuffled in by a
girl's casual remark in the passage; and beautifully appointed and
served when you got there and here was--Well, there were places laid for
two only and a ramshackle kind of cold picnic scattered about the cloth.
Everything there, help yourself kind of show. Bit of cold meat, half a
cold tart, lump of cheese, loaf of bread, assortment of plates, and so
on.

"Sabre said, 'Oh, by the way, my wife's not here. She's away.'

"I murmured the polite thing. He was staring at the two places, frowning
a bit. 'Half a minute,' he said and hopped off on his old s