“Can you spare me a second in the outside shop?” I said to the hairdresser.
“With pleasure, sir,” he answered, following me out. “What can I do for you?”
“Look here,” I said, pushing half-a-sovereign towards him over the counter, “that’s for your trouble in letting me have my letters addressed here. And now another matter. I’ve not been very well to-day, and want to see a doctor. Who’s the best man to go to?”
“Dr. Carruthers, Devonshire ’Ouse, Grayland Road, sir. Best doctor in the town, sir,” he responded.
“Would you mind writing it down for me? I’ve got a beastly memory.”
“With pleasure, sir,” he said, producing a bottle of ink, a pen, and a sheet of paper from a drawer. “That’s it, sir. Much obliged, sir. I’ll be very careful about the letters, and good-day, sir.”
CHAPTER XVII
ON THE HEELS OF JAMES MULLEN
I had already decided that my next destination must be Stanby, where it would be necessary to pay a visit to Professor Lawrance’s hair-cutting establishment. But first I had to read the letters I had secured, so I turned into a small quiet-looking hotel and, having ordered dinner, asked that I might have the use of a bedroom. Then I rang for a jug of boiling water, and on its arrival I dived into the folds of my umbrella, and having brought up the two epistles which were there secreted I proceeded to hold them over the steam until the gum was so moist that it was possible to open them.
The letter for Green was, as I have said, directed to himself in his own writing. It contained nothing more important than a sheet of blank notepaper, which, as the reader will already have surmised, had evidently been sent as a “blind,” its purpose being to afford the inquiry agent an excuse for calling at the shop where it had been delivered.
The letter addressed to Mr. Henry Jeanes—that which had attracted my attention from the fact of its bearing the postmark of the very town in Norway where I had reason to believe Mullen’s sister was staying—promised to be more interesting, and it was with no little eagerness that I opened it and read as follows:—