"Yours to command, Jenny." It pleased him immensely. "Can I get up to the roof from here?"
Jenny indicated a small door at the north-west corner.
"The stairs," she said, "are enclosed. It's a kind of thin box. Do be careful, because they're nearly as steep as a carpeted ladder."
"I know, I’ve gone op there from another floor." He looked at the kitchen, and then at Jenny. 'Ten minutes?" "Less, if I can make it"
With even more acute exhilaration, Martin sauntered through mist-wreaths towards the door. It was set up well above ground-height on five concrete steps. The stairs, if he remembered correctly, were very narrow; they turned back the other way at each landing, which had a window and a door. Though half expecting to find the door bolted, he discovered it was open. He had shut himself into the cramped stair-well, whose dingy carpet showed holes and whose window-light filtered through mist, when another door at his right hand opened.
Framed in the doorway, against the dim-lit background of the dining-room, stood Dr. Hugh Laurier.
From his hard, white collar to his polished shoes, from the precision of the dark necktie to the pressing of the dark blue suit Dr. Laurier was so immaculately groomed that Martin felt like a tramp dragged out of an areaway. On Dr. Laurier there might never have been a speck of dust in his life.
"Capta — I beg your pardon: Mr. Drake."
His voice had the pleasant engaging professional level.
"Ordinarily," Dr. Laurier uttered a short laugh, "it would be hard to explain my presence at this hour. It would, indeed. But I was like the boy with the serial story. After going home, I returned here. I had to know what happened."