'Sit down,' said Hugo. 'Well?'
'I reckon you've heard, sir,' Albert Shawn began impassively, 'the yarn that's going all round the stores.'
'I have not.'
'Everyone's whispering,' said Albert Shawn, gazing carefully at his boots, 'that Mr. Hugo has taken a kind of a fancy to Miss Payne.'
Hugo restrained himself.
'Heavens!' he exclaimed, with a clever affectation of lightness, 'what next? I've only spoken to the chit once.'
'Don't I know it, sir!'
'Enough of that! What have you to report?'
'Miss Payne left at 2.15, whipped round to the flats entrance, took the lift to the top-floor, went into Mr. Francis Tudor's flat.'
'What's that you say? Whose flat?' cried Hugo.