'I am sorry,' Lavendale replied. 'You see, I am an American, not a Londoner.'
'That,' the other declared, 'accounts for it. My name is Somers-Keyne—Hamilton Somers-Keyne. My work, I trust, is more familiar to you than my personality?'
'Naturally,' Lavendale assented, a little vaguely.
The dramatist, who had been searching upon a mantelpiece which seemed littered with cigarette ends, scraps of letters and an empty tumbler or so, suddenly turned around with the key in his hand.
'It is here,' he pronounced. 'Examine the rooms for yourself, Mr.——?'
'Lavendale.'
'Mr. Lavendale. They are furnished, I believe, but as regards the rent I know nothing except that the myrmidon who collects it is unpleasantly persistent in his attentions. If you will return the key to me, sir, when you have finished, I shall be obliged.'
'Certainly,' Lavendale promised.
The two young men opened the door and explored a dusty, barely-furnished, gloomy, conventional little suite, consisting of a single bedroom, a boxlike sitting-room, and a bathroom in the last stages of dilapidation. The rooms were undoubtedly empty, nor was there anywhere any sign of recent habitation. Lavendale stood at the window, leaned over and counted. When he drew back his face was more than ever puzzled. He looked once more searchingly around the unprepossessing rooms.
'This was the window, Reggie,' he insisted.