He left the office and strolled up the street in the direction of the restaurant which he chiefly frequented. He reached it in a moment or two, but left it at once by another entrance. Within ten minutes he was back at his office.
“Has any one been, Halsey?”
“No one, sir,” the clerk answered.
“You will be so good,” Laverick continued, “as to forget that I have returned.”
He passed on quickly into his own room and made his way into the small closet where he kept his coat and washed his hands. He had scarcely been there a minute when he heard voices in the outside hall. The door of his office was opened.
“Mr. Laverick said nothing about an appointment at this hour,” he heard Halsey protest in a somewhat deprecating tone.
“He had, perhaps, forgotten,” was the answer, in a totally unfamiliar voice. “At any rate, I am not in a great hurry. The matter is of some importance, however, and I will wait for Mr. Laverick.”
The visitor was shown in. Laverick investigated his appearance through a crack in the door. He was a man of medium height, well-dressed, clean-shaven, and wore gold-rimmed spectacles. He made himself comfortable in Laverick’s easy-chair, and accepted the paper which Halsey offered him.
“I shall be quite glad of a rest,” he remarked genially. “I have been running about all the morning.”
“Mr. Laverick is never very long out for lunch, sir,” Halsey said. “I daresay he will not keep you more than a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes.”