CHAPTER III
THE PAPERS IN THE CHARTER CHEST
At Liverpool we wired to Hugh's solicitors for an appointment that afternoon and dispatched Watkins direct to Chesby with the body of his late master. We arrived at Victoria about four o'clock, and took a taxi to the offices of Courtenay, Bellowes, Manson and Courtenay in a smutted old building in Fleet Street over against the Law Courts.
Up two nights of stairs we climbed to a dirty door with the firm-name straggling across it. A clerk stepped forward as we entered, but before he could speak a brown figure shot out of an inner office, and wrapped Hugh and me in a jovial hug. It was Nikka, thinner than we remembered him, but with the same steady eyes and quiet smile. He was abashed by his own enthusiasm and started to apologize.
"I am so glad to see you two," he said, "that I forget it is a time of sadness. Yet even so it means gladness for me that I see my friends again.'
"It's gladness for all of us," returned Hugh, wringing his hand, with its delicate, sinewy fingers.
"It means something like the old life once more," I added. "That is, if you can come, Nikka."
"I'll come," he said simply. "For two years I have been faithful to my fiddle. Now, I think, it is time I had a rest."
An elderly gentleman, with gray hair and precise features, emerged from the inner offices and bowed deferentially to Hugh.
"I trust your lordship is in good health. If you remember—"