With joy he saw a slowly crawling hansom coming toward him. The driver hailed him, and he threw himself into the vehicle with a sense of relief indescribable.
“Alderman’s Lane, city,” he cried.
It seemed scarcely credible that he should have succeeded in so readily discovering the inestimable treasure which had seemed utterly beyond reach.
On reaching his destination, the young lawyer ran lightly up the steps, and passed into the office. As it happened, Mr. Willis Joyner was there, reading a note which had just come for him. He looked up, and cried out as if in surprise:
“Hello, Amberley, is that you? What have you been up to—practising a little mild burglary, eh?”
“A cabman gave you an Italian register just now, did he not?” anxiously inquired Frank.
“He did. I put it in my safe.”
Arrived in the chamber devoted to the use of the cheerful and urbane Mr. Willis Joyner, Frank seized on the volume the instant it was produced from the ponderous iron safe. In a very short investigation—for he was an accomplished master of the Italian language—he lighted on the register which was to set Paul Desfrayne at liberty.
“By the way,” Mr. Willis remarked, “a telegram arrived for you directly after you left this morning. I had forgotten.”
“A telegram? Did an Italian call for me?”