'Yes, sir.'
'Thank you.'
And he hastened back to his central office, and breathed a sigh. 'I have actually spoken to her,' he murmured. 'How charming her voice is!'
But Miss Payne's physical condition desolated him. If she was so obviously exhausted at 12.30, what would she be like at the day's end?'
'I've got it!' he cried.
He seized a pen and wrote: 'Notice.—The public are respectfully informed that this establishment will close to-day at two o'clock.'
He rang a bell, and a messenger appeared.
'Take this to the printing-office instantly, and tell Mr. Waugh it must be posted throughout the place in half an hour.'
Shortly after two o'clock Sloane Street was amazed to witness the exodus of the three thousand odd. The closure was attributed to a whim of Hugo's for celebrating some obscure anniversary in his life. Many hundreds of persons were inconvenienced, and the internal economy of scores of polite homes seriously deranged. The evening papers found a paragraph. And Hugo lost perhaps a hundred and fifty pounds net. But Hugo was happy, and he was expectant.
At ten o'clock that night a youngish man, extremely like Simon Shawn, was brought by Simon into Hugo's presence under the dome. This was Simon's brother, Albert Shawn, a member of Hugo's private detective force.