'This should be the one,' he announced.
He rang a bell. They could hear it pealing inside, but there was no response. Once more he pressed the button. This time it seemed to them both that its shrill summons was ringing through empty spaces. There was no sound of any movement within. The door of the next flat, however, opened. A tall, rather stout man, very untidily dressed, with pale, unwholesome face and a mass of ill-arranged hair, looked out.
'Sir,' he said, 'it is no use ringing that bell. The only purpose you serve is to disturb me at my labours. The flat is empty.'
'Are you quite sure about that?' Lavendale asked.
'Absolutely!'
'How was it, then, that I saw a face at one of the windows a quarter of an hour ago?' Lavendale demanded.
'You are mistaken, sir,' was the grim reply. 'The thing is impossible. The porter who has the letting of the flat is only on duty in the afternoon, and, as a special favour to the proprietors, I have the keys here.'
'Then with your permission I will borrow them,' Lavendale observed. 'I am looking for rooms in this neighbourhood.'
The man bowed and threw open the door.
'Come in, sir,' he invited pompously. 'I will fetch the keys for you. My secretary,' he added, with a little wave of his hand, pointing to a florid, over-buxom and untidy-looking woman who was struggling with an ancient typewriter. 'You find me hard at work trying to finish a play I have been commissioned to write for my friend Tree. You are aware, perhaps, of my—er—identity?'