'I want to see Mrs. Tudor,' said Hugo.
'Well, she ain't in at the moment,' replied the man.
'Excuse me,' Hugo corrected him, 'I saw her enter a minute ago with her latchkey.'
'No, you didn't,' the man persisted. 'I'm the landlord of this house, and I've been in my room at the back, and nobody's come in this last half-hour, for I can see the 'all and the stairs as I sits in my chair.'
'Wait a moment,' said Hugo; and he retreated to the kerb, in the expectation of being able to descry Camilla's light in the fifth story.
'Oh, you can look,' the landlord observed loftily, divining his intention; 'I warrant there's no light there.'
And there was not.
'Perhaps you'll call again,' said the landlord suavely.
'I suppose you haven't got a room to let?' Hugo demanded, fumbling about in his brain for a plan to meet this swift crisis.
'I can't tell you till my wife comes home.'