“I shall be very pleased if you will,” Francis put in. “I'll go and tell the waiter to enlarge my table.”
He hurried off. On his way back, a page-boy touched him on the arm.
“If you please, sir,” he announced, “you are wanted on the telephone.”
“I?” Francis exclaimed. “Some mistake, I should think. Nobody knows that I am here.”
“Mr. Ledsam,” the boy said. “This way, sir.”
Francis walked down the vestibule to the row of telephone boxes at the further end. The attendant who was standing outside, indicated one of them and motioned the boy to go away. Francis stepped inside. The man followed, closing the door behind him.
“I am asking your pardon, sir, for taking a great liberty,” he confessed. “No one wants you on the telephone. I wished to speak to you.”
Francis looked at him in surprise. The man was evidently agitated. Somehow or other, his face was vaguely familiar.
“Who are you, and what do you want with me?” Francis asked.
“I was butler to Mr. Hilditch, sir,” the man replied. “I waited upon you the night you dined there, sir—the night of Mr. Hilditch's death.”