"We have," said Charters calmly. "Hogenauer has offered to tell us who L. is."
There was a pause. The light was darkening to faint purple along the water, and the cliffs threw long shadows. Inside the house I heard a clock strike the quarter-hour after eight. Charter's long face, with its high ascetic framework of bones, was now as puzzled as H.M.'s.
"It was a week ago to-night," Charters went on, considering each word, "and Hogenauer came here-alone. It was the first time I had seen him face to face since the old days when we had him under observation. We've got a small household: just my wife, my secretary, and the maid: but they were all out. There's an inspector of police named Daniels, who sometimes goes over reports with me in the evening, but he had just left. I was sitting there in my study," he pointed to the window of the room I had observed before, "at a table drawn near the window, with the lamp lighted. It was very warm, and the window was up. All of a sudden I looked up from my papers-and there was Hogenauer, standing outside the window looking in at me."
He paused, and looked at H.M. "Merrivale, it was dashed queer. You used to say I hadn't much imagination. Perhaps not; I don't know. I hadn't heard the man approach; I simply looked up, and there he was; or half of him over the sill of the window. I knew him in a second. He hadn't changed much, but he looked ill. He was as little and mild and sharp-featured as ever, but his skin looked like oiled paper over the bridge of his nose. I've seen people in a bout of malaria who had eyes just like his. He said, `Good evening,' and then — just as casual as be damned — he climbed over the sill of the window into the room, and took off his hat, and sat down opposite me. Then he said, `I want to sell you a secret for two thousand pounds."'
Charters looked satirically at both of us.
"Of course, I had to pretend I didn't know him, and what was he doing there, and how did he know me. He corrected me very mildly, and said: `I think you know me. I once wrote you a letter explaining why I was going to Germany, and why I could not reveal the dye-process on which I was working. In Berlin we knew all the men who worked against us in your bureau."'
"Bah!" snorted H.M., who was' evidently stung.
'Bluff" said Charters. "And yet I don't think it was. He might be mad, though: that was what occurred to me. The long and short of it was that he told me L. was in England, and offered to tell me who L. is, and where to find him, for two thousand pounds. I told him I was no longer in the service, and asked him why he didn't communicate with you. He said, very calmly, that to communicate with you — and to be known as having done it — would be as much as his life was worth. He said: `I want two thousand pounds, but I will not risk my life for it.' Then I asked him why he needed money so badly. He began to talk of his `invention,' or his `experiment'. Merrivale has told you as much of that as I know… and I began to think he was mad. What I can't describe is the supreme — what's the word I want? — the supreme quietness of the man, sitting with his hands folded on his hat, and his bald head, and his eyes as big and fixed as a stuffed cat's.
"Anyhow, Blake, I made a trip to London to see Merrivale next day. Hogenauer hadn't been lying; L. is believed to be in England now."
Charters stopped, and dusted the knees of his trousers like a man who wishes to get rid of the whole thing. His conscience appeared to be bothering him.