He had as yet no fear that the situation had passed beyond his control, but she had succeeded in rousing an unusual degree of irritation in him. He thought he would experience relief in talking to a man to whom he could say what he liked.
Emmons had rooms in one of the upper stories of an uptown club. It was a short walk from the Lees’, and Vickers arrived at the entrance in a couple of minutes, but there was a long delay before he was shown to Emmons’s apartment.
He found Emmons seated at his writing table.
“Good-morning, Lee,” he said rather magnificently, and Vickers recognized him as the man who had been at Nellie’s side the evening before.
“Mr. Emmons,” said Lee, sitting down without being asked, “I think you witnessed my triumphant return to the bosom of my family last evening. I find myself in something of a hole on account of a foolish trick. For reasons which we need not go into, I passed myself off as Mr. Lee’s son, on the strength of a likeness. Unhappily I had no idea of just what sort of a rascal he appears to have been.”
Nature or art had made it easy for Emmons’s face to express nothing.
“And you are not Bob Lee?” he said.
“Lee died the day before I left South America.”
“Why have you come to tell me this?”
“I found myself rather in need of a dispassionate outsider, and Miss Lee mentioned your name.”