Mr. John Dory smiled.
“There is an old warrant,” he said, “which I have in my pocket, but I fancy that there are a few little things since then which we may have to enquire into.”
“This beats me!” the little man declared. “Who do you think I am?”
“Mr. Spencer Fitzgerald, to start with,” John Dory said. “It seems to me not impossible that we may find another pseudonym for you.”
“You can find as many as you like,” the little man answered testily, “but my name is James Fitzgerald, and I am an actor employed at the Shaftesbury Theatre, as I can prove with the utmost ease. I never called myself Spencer; nor, to my knowledge, was I ever called by such a name. Nor, as I remarked before, have I ever seen any one of you three people before with the exception of Miss Brown here, whom I have seen on the stage.”
John Dory grunted.
“It was Mr. Spencer Fitzgerald,” he said, “a clerk in Howell & Wilson’s bookshop, who leapt out of the window of Daisy Villa two years ago. It may be Mr. James Fitzgerald now. Gentlemen of your profession have a knack of changing their names.”
“My profession’s as good as yours, anyway!” the little man exclaimed. “We aren’t all fools in it! My friend Mr. Peter Ruff said to me that there was a young lady whom I used to know who was anxious to meet me again, and would I step around here about eight o’clock. Here I am, and all I can say is, if that’s the young lady, I never saw her before in my life.”
There was a moment’s breathless silence. Then the door was softly opened. Violet Brown went staggering back like a woman who sees a ghost. She bit her lips till the blood came. It was Peter Ruff who stood looking in upon them—Peter Ruff, carefully dressed in evening clothes, his silk hat at exactly the correct angle, his coat and white kid gloves upon his arm.
“Dear me,” he said, “you don’t seem to be getting on very well! Mr. Dory,” he added, with a note of surprise in his tone, “this is indeed an unexpected pleasure!”