CHAPTER X
The slender, badly hung gate closed of itself behind him with a resounding clang, communicating a little thrill to the ground.
In answer to his ring a girl came to the door. She was rather short, thin, and dressed in black, with a clean white apron. In the half light of the narrow lobby he made out a mahogany hat-rack of conventional shape, and on a wooden bracket a small lamp with a tarnished reflector.
"No," Richard heard in a quiet, tranquil voice, "Mr. Aked has just gone out for a walk. He didn't say what time he should be back. Can I give him any message?"
"He sent me a card to come down and see him this afternoon, and—I've come. He said about seven o'clock. It's a quarter past now. But perhaps he forgot all about it."
"Will you step inside? He may only be away for a minute or two."
"No, thanks. If you'll just tell him I've called—"
"I'm so sorry—" The girl raised her hand and rested it against the jamb of the doorway; her eyes were set slantwise on the strip of garden, and she seemed to muse an instant.