Before I had not noticed him: he had been only a professional Voice masked under a dim light in the glass fort downstairs. Now he emerged as an energetic young man with flat fair hair, a rather high colour, serious eyes under sandy brows, and a heavy jaw. His clothes were good, and rather worn. He had one hand in the pocket of his jacket: it was gripped round something which made a suggestive bulge there. After throwing open the door, he stopped dead — and I could see in his expression the sort of position in which he thought he had found us. You could almost hear the word: "Misconduct, eh?" Yet this sort of thing usually startles the person who walks in more than the person who is walked in upon. He was definitely flustered.
"Good evening," I said politely. "Well?"
His suspicions, it was clear, were struggling with his professional bearing. The question was whether he would go back into his chrysalis or emerge from it. His tone showed a mixture of the two.
"I — came in," he said. "You didn't answer my knock."
"No," I agreed. "Well?"
There was a pause. Then, after a glance at the night-porter behind, he got it out.
"I'm sorry if there's been a mistake," he said; "but do you usually pay your bills with counterfeit money?"
His higher colour, at that remark, seemed to say, "Rather neat way of putting it." I thought I detected in this young man a keen student of the films. If so, it was all the worse. His eyes had a shiny look, and he breathed rather fast: undoubtedly he was prepared for trouble.
"Counterfeit money? What the devil do you mean, counterfeit money?"
"I repeat, sorry if there's a mistake. You gave me four ten-shilling notes. All of them are bad."