Lynden, after knocking once perfunctorily, did not wait for a summons to enter. He immediately threw the door wide open, crying, without much show of deference:
"Hello, Mr. Slade! You work late to-night."
A little, dingy, dreary figure of a man, perched on a high stool, and bending over a huge canvas-bound volume, slowly raised his head, and gazed at his unceremonious callers with the vacant look that one sees in the eyes of deaf people who have not heard distinctly. His smooth-shaven face was like leather, shot and crisscrossed with a network of fine wrinkles. Almost on the tip of his nose he was balancing a pair of steel-rimmed spectacles, and the eyes which now looked over them were remarkably bright and sparkling, like a mouse's, conveying to the casual glance an alertness which they did not actually possess.
"Howard Lynden, close the door," was the odd creature's greeting, in a voice hoarse and rasping. The sharp little eyes shifted to the Captain, and back to Lynden again. There was no cordiality in either his tone or manner.
The young man took a step forward, laid his hand upon the tall desk at which the little man was seated, raised his voice and asked, "Did you know there had been a murder committed on this floor this evening?"
"Murder?" querulously, and with no show of interest. "Murder?"
"Yes; murder. The man died in Doctor Westbrook's office—stabbed."
Without displaying the least curiosity at so unexpected, so sensational an announcement, Mr. Slade slowly wagged his head, saying only, "I heard nothing of it." He dipped his pen into the ink-well, with an air of dismissing his callers and the subject alike.
"I saw your light, and just dropped in to learn if you knew of it," Lynden concluded, as he followed the Captain toward the hall. Lowering his voice, and addressing the latter, "Is there anything else?" he inquired; at once the wrinkled, meagre visage and twinkling eyes became suspicious and alert.
"What is that?" demanded Slade, with obvious mistrust.