“I'll see him presently. Shut him up somewhere where he can smoke.”
The young man withdrew, carefully closing the door, around which Sir Henry, with a word of apology, arranged a screen.
“I don't think,” he explained, “that eavesdropping extends to these premises, or that our voices could reach outside. Still, a ha'porth of prevention, eh? Have a cigar, Horridge.”
“I'm not smoking for a day or two, thank you, sir.”
“You look as though they'd put you through it,” Sir Henry remarked.
His visitor smiled.
“I've travelled fourteen miles in a barrel,” he said, “and we were out for twenty-four hours in a Danish sailing skiff. You know what the weather's been like in the North Sea. Before that, the last word of writing I saw on German soil was a placard, offering a reward of five thousand marks for my detention, with a disgustingly lifelike photograph at the top. I had about fifty yards of quay to walk in broad daylight, and every other man I passed turned to stare after me. It gives you the cold shivers down your back when you daren't look round to see if you're being followed.”
Sir Henry groped in the cupboard of his desk, and produced a bottle of whisky and a syphon of soda water. His visitor nodded approvingly.
“I've touched nothing until I've reached what I consider sanctuary,” he observed. “My nerves have gone rotten for the first time in my life. Do you mind, sir, if I lock the door?”
“Go ahead,” Sir Henry assented.