Mr. Ryan approached the table a little diffidently.
“I hope you will forgive the liberty, sir,” he said to Hamel. “You remember me, I trust—Mr. Ryan. I am the librarian at St. David’s Hall.”
Hamel nodded.
“I thought I’d seen you there.”
“I was wondering,” the man continued, “whether you had a car of Mr. Fentolin’s in Norwich to-day, and if so, whether I might beg a seat back in case you were returning before the five o’clock train? I came in early this morning to go through some manuscripts at a second-hand bookseller’s here, and I have unfortunately missed the train back.”
Hamel shook his head.
“I came in by train myself, or I would have given you a lift back, with pleasure,” he said.
Mr. Ryan expressed his thanks briefly and left the room. Kinsley watched him from over the top of a newspaper.
“So that is one of Mr. Fentolin’s creatures, too,” he remarked. “Keeping his eye on you in Norwich, eh? Tell me, Dick, by-the-by, how do you get on with the rest of Mr. Fentolin’s household, and exactly of whom does it consist?”
“There is his sister-in-law,” Hamel replied, “Mrs. Seymour Fentolin. She is a strange, tired-looking woman who seems to stand in mortal fear of Mr. Fentolin. She is always overdressed and never natural, but it seems to me that nearly everything she does is done to suit his whims, or at his instigation.”