“Where is he?” he asked.
“The person is in the hall, sir,” replied the footman.
“Show him into the library,” said Bradstone; then he stood looking at the sheet of paper, which contained only two words—“Ezekiel Mowle”—with a thoughtful frown, and a few minutes afterward went into the library.
In the brand-new room with its brand-new furniture and rows of newly bound books sat, on the edge of one of the morocco chairs, a thin, hatchet-faced man, dressed like a clerk. He would have served very well as a model for Uriah Heep; but instead of that “’umble” personage’s red hair he wore a palpable wig, whose hyacinthine curls, clustering in pious falsehood upon the cadaverous forehead, made the face look like a skull; indeed, being close shaven and without a single eyebrow or eyelash, it would have closely resembled one under any conditions.
Bartley Bradstone shut the door close.
“Well, Mowle,” he said, with marked coldness, “this is an unexpected pleasure. What has brought you down here?”
Mr. Mowle stretched his thin, colorless lips by way of a smile, and coughed apologetically behind a huge, bony hand.
“I thought it best to run down, sir,” he said, and his voice matched his person, being hollow and strained, as if his throat were totally devoid of moisture. “I considered the question most anxiously, Mr. Bartley, and I thought it best to run down,” and he glanced upward with a peculiar expression of servile obsequiousness.
“What’s wrong?” demanded Bartley Bradstone, eyeing him with suppressed irritation. “Why didn’t you telegraph, whatever it is?”
Mr. Mowle fingered his chin and blinked his lashless lids.