"Damn your poetry!" Aaron Rodd interrupted. "Tell me what you mean when you say that Harvey Grimm has gone? He was to have been waiting here for me."
"As I left the Milan," the poet explained, "I enquired of the hall-porter if Mr. Harvey Grimm had returned. The man told me that not only had he returned but that he had left again in a taxicab, a few minutes afterwards. I understood the fellow to say that he had gone into the country and would not be back for several days."
Aaron Rodd put his hand to his forehead. Already a dim suspicion of the truth was finding its way into his brain. Then there was a gentle tinkle from the bell of his newly installed telephone. He took up the receiver. The voice which spoke was the voice of Harvey Grimm.
"That you, Aaron?"
"Yes!"
"Anything happened?"
"Yes!"
"It's O.K. You needn't explain. Back in about a week. So long."
Aaron Rodd laid down the receiver. He was still a little bewildered, oppressed by a certain sense of humiliation. He threw the packet which he had been carrying so carefully upon his desk and scowled.
"What's upset you?" Cresswell asked amiably.